In the Shelter of Your Arms
by Rhianwen
Summary: [Chapter 14 now uploaded.] When Malcolm discovers quite by accident that Sydney is in danger, he offers her a place to stay, but she quickly learns that he may be in far greater danger. (MalcolmSydney...eventually. ) Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

In the Shelter of Your Arms  
  
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Disclaimer: Well, I don't own any of the characters of Super-Human Samurai Syber Squad, but the people who do own them don't seem to care about them at all, and so I doubt they'll sue me.  
  
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Author's Notes: Well, here we go. My first Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad story. The first thing I'd like to say is that I never found the relationship between Tanker and Sydney to be realistic. I did, however, see some basis for at least a friendship between Malcolm and Sydney. I'm not sure how an actual romance between them will work to write, so this might just turn out to be a friendship (although that would require a new title...). My intention, however, is to write a Malcolm/Sydney romance. Anyway, please let me know if you have any thoughts on this - or feedback of any other kind. If there seems to be any interest in this story, I'll continue it...with a longer chapter next time. [Self-deprecating grin]  
  
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And now, ooooooooooooooooooooooooooon with the show!  
  
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It has often been said that, if one wants things to happen, one must make things happen. True as this may be, the most significant things often happen without one's seeking them. The most life-altering events occur as we are simply trying to make our way home at the end of the day. Often, location is a key factor in this. If one is in the right place at the right time, nearly anything can happen. Which brings up the second major facet: timing. A split second sooner or later can completely alter a sequence of events, for better or worse, or utter indifference.  
  
This was most certainly the case with one young man on a sunny Monday afternoon late in October in the California city of North Valley. Had he entered the cafeteria a split second later, the events of this tale may not have occurred at all, and certainly not in the same way.  
  
However, this is not a story about what might have happened.  
  
What happened was that, on this sunny, sleepy, and altogether sickeningly typical, in his opinion, Monday afternoon late in October, Malcolm Frink wandered into the cafeteria of North Valley High School. There was nothing odd in this alone, as the cafeteria was where he tended to spend much of his time after the day's classes were through. He could never tell quite why this was. Perhaps, for all his claims to hate people, there was something in Malcolm that craved friendship, the sound of another human voice, the thoughts and ideals of another, the clasp of a human hand. There were, at least occasionally, people passing through, and if one could not be a part of their comings and goings, the next best thing was, of course, to observe them.  
  
The truly ironic thing about today, however, was that Malcolm had entered the popular hangout spot with absolutely no intention of staying there; he was looking only to buy a bag of pretzels. Upon noting the small 'closed' sign propped cockily upon the counter before the register, the dark-haired young man, issuing a string of curses, was about to turn with the intention of finding a table and staying a while after all, when a small startled sound caught his attention.  
  
Instinctively, he clutched his laptop case and his sketchbook tighter, his gaze darting in the direction of the sound. Well. It appeared as though he wouldn't have the cafeteria wholly to himself today. Not that this thought made any impression whatsoever on Malcolm. It didn't even cross his mind. The shock of seeing fellow student and enemy-by-proxy Sydney Forrester seated, cross-legged, on a red plastic chair pulled up to the table in the corner, her eyes red-rimmed from the tears of the past half hour, a duffel bag on the ground beside her, lip cut and swollen, right eye bruised and discoloured in stark contrast with the deathly pallor of her face, staring back at him with mistrust, anger, desperation...and a touch of pleading, swimming in her dark eyes.  
  
The sudden and utterly unexpected urge to find out what had happened, and help as he could, instantly annoyed him. What in the hell should he care why she was here alone at close to sunset, with a duffel bag, nor where that bruise over her eye had come from? Quite simply put, he didn't. So...why did the thought that that idiot jock boyfriend of hers might be responsible for this make him want to find the lump-head and remove his lumpy head with a rusty nail?  
  
'I never need an excuse to want to kill Tanker,' he reflected with a wry grin. About this time, he became aware that the mingled emotions pouring from her gaze had all but gone, and now impatience, and just a hint of curiosity, was prevalent.  
  
Hmm...better act quickly.  
  
"So, what's your problem?" he demanded sharply, falling back on old familiar territory.  
  
She averted her eyes hastily.  
  
"Nothing," she replied mildly.  
  
He raised an eyebrow, and, though every instinct within him was shouting at him to get away, not to get involved, he found himself crossing the cafeteria and taking a seat next to her.  
  
"Then where did that - " He gestured to the bruise and cut lip. " - come from?"  
  
"Oh!" She quickly lifted a hand to her face, attempting to cover both injuries. "I...walked into a door. Y'know, Sydney the bookworm, head always in the clouds, right?"  
  
He sighed. Her forced cheerfulness, not to mention her shaky, nervous, nearly hysterical laugh, certainly did nothing to convince him.  
  
"Sydney," he began slowly, looking down at his hands, "I know that we're not the greatest of friends, or even friends at all, and you'll probably think that it isn't my business - I suppose, to be honest, it isn't - but...did Tanker do this?"  
  
"No!"  
  
Malcolm glanced up sharply, scanning her face for any signs of evasion or dishonesty, but those deep brown eyes held only disbelief, aghast at the mere suggestion. Evidently, the truth.  
  
"If you say so," he said with a shrug, standing to leave.  
  
"It was nice talking to you," she called after him dryly. His only reply was a growl of annoyance.  
  
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If this had been the only meeting between the two, nothing more would have come of it - again, certainly not in the same way. Malcolm would have dismissed her tears and injuries as the results of a catfight, or with no reason at all, telling himself quite frostily that it was not his problem. Over the next weeks, he was to wish vainly several times that this had been the case.  
  
When, however, he walked into the cafeteria after school once more, two days later, to behold Sydney, at a different table, but still with the duffel bag, re-folding and packing its contents - pyjamas? A toothbrush? A hairbrush? A...sleeping bag? - he found himself quite unable to walk away.  
  
Instead, he slowly approached the table, making not a sound, and watched her for a time.  
  
"You seem to have made yourself quite comfortable here," he commented idly. She stiffened and bolted from her chair, wheeling about to face him. For a time, they nearly stared at one another, dark eyes meeting. Not surprisingly, he could see equal parts anger and fear swimming in them. Finally, he spoke again with a shrug.  
  
"You know you could get in a lot of trouble if someone found out that you were sleeping here?"  
  
It was a statement more than a question.  
  
"How...how do you know I'm sleeping here?"  
  
"Why else would you have a sleeping bag?"  
  
"I could be going...to a sleep-over," she suggested, annoyed.  
  
"Are you?"  
  
She returned his piercing gaze unblinkingly, and then felt herself begin to crumble beneath it.  
  
"No," she whispered. "I'm not. Are you going to turn me in?"  
  
"I don't know yet. Just give me a second to think," Malcolm requested brusquely. He turned away, leaning on the table, rubbing his eyes wearily. Sydney held her breath as he spoke quietly.  
  
"No. I'm not."  
  
She stared at him incredulously, helplessly amazed. He looked up with a dry smirk.  
  
"After all, what good would it do me?"  
  
"I...thank-you, Malcolm."  
  
"But, you know, someone else could find you here. Probably will."  
  
"I know. I don't have a lot of options right now."  
  
"How long are you planning on doing this?"  
  
"Four weeks," she replied immediately, absently fiddling with then hairbrush laid out on the table, her mass of dark curls falling forward to hide her expression.  
  
A silence nearly tangible in its tension hung over the two as their eyes met, sizing one another up. Finally, with a sigh, Malcolm broke it.  
  
"I have a room in my place you can use."  
  
She recoiled, the shock of his offer physically jolting her.  
  
"Why?" she finally managed to squeak out.  
  
"You can't live at the school for a month."  
  
"No; I mean, why help me instead of just report me?"  
  
He was silent for a long moment, gazing at a space on the wall behind her as he considered this. Finally, he spoke, his eyes flickering back to her.  
  
"Look, Sydney, I don't know a thing about your situation. But it's obvious that you really didn't have any other choice. Moving into the cafeteria doesn't seem like something that anyone, much less you, would do on a whim."  
  
"I...true. But, Malcolm..."  
  
He stopped her with a hand.  
  
"I won't ask you to tell me what's going on. There will be conditions, but that isn't one of them."  
  
"Oh!" Sydney looked surprised, as though it hadn't occurred to her that he might ask this. "I just wondered what you were going to tell your parents."  
  
"...Suffice it to say, they won't object. Take it or leave it, Sydney; it's all the same to me."  
  
She closed her eyes briefly. She certainly didn't relish the thought of another solitary camp-out in the cafeteria; the thought of a real bed, complete with blankets and pillows, was certainly appealing. Still, would sharing residence, however temporarily, with Malcolm Frink be much better? And there was the matter of those conditions...  
  
Shaking her head, she decided. If Malcolm had discovered her here, it would only be a matter of time before someone else would as well. And they might not be so sympathetic. A soft statement from him cut through her train of thought.  
  
"It doesn't seem that you have many options."  
  
More exactly, NO options. For the first time, the true hopelessness of her situation hit her, nearly a physical blow to the chest. Catching her breath, she gazed up at him.  
  
"I'll take it."  
  
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	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
  
Author's Notes: My, my, my. This little chapter has taken a goodish bit of time to churn out. It has, in fact, been a cause of my recently acquiring more bald spots from tearing out patches of hair. As I'm sure you can guess, when a self-acclaimed humour writer tries something with angst and a plot, gasp of amazement, and no humour whatsoever, it's a little difficult. At the same time, though, it's been incredibly rewarding to try something so drastically different from my normal style.  
  
Anyway, I apologize for taking so long. It's a story that I've been longing to write for a while now, and so I have every intention of continuing it.  
  
I hope you enjoy. ^_^  
  
  
  
  
  
"What on earth I DOING?" Sydney muttered under her breath as she trudged through the student parking lot toward Malcolm's car, a dark green Honda Civic.  
  
Unbeknownst to her, her words were echoed silently by the young man not three steps ahead of her. What had made him offer her a place to stay? Now, he had not only become involved against his will in whatever stupid situation she might be entangled in, but he had given up his privacy for the next four weeks! However, as he recalled the sick, livid expression in her eyes the previous afternoon at his insinuation that she would be caught camping out at the school and sent home, the idea didn't seem so daunting. Hitting the power lock to unlock her door, he slid into the driver's seat and started the ignition.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Wow! I didn't know you lived so close to me!" Sydney noted, peering curiously out the car window at the small two-story that they had come to a stop in front of. "I'm only a couple blocks from here."  
  
"Oh?" Malcolm replied absently, parking and turning the car off.  
  
"Yeah! So, why do you drive to school everyday when the walk is so nice?"  
  
"I'm...not a big outdoors person."  
  
Noting the hesitation in his voice, Sydney let the subject go and hurried up the front walk after him.  
  
"Oh; alright."  
  
"So, does that mean that Sam lives around here?" Malcolm inquired, referring to Sydney's best friend of years, Sam Collins, also the confirmed Mr. Popularity of North Valley High School.  
  
"Pretty close. Oh, that reminds me; I have to go to a band practice tomorrow night. I hope that's alright."  
  
"Why wouldn't it be?" he snorted. "I'll give you a spare key, and you can come and go as you please, as long as you stay the hell out of my way."  
  
"I see," she murmured with a wry smile, following up the walk to the front door.  
  
"And since you like the walk so much, you can find your own way to school, too. I keep...irregular hours, and it would be more trouble than it would be worth to co-ordinate our schedules just for the sake of coming and going together."  
  
Sydney nodded carefully, quite grateful for the suggestion. Although she knew that it hadn't been given out of any concern for her, it did quite conveniently solve the problem of keeping this whole situation from Sam, Tanker, and Amp. At least, until she had something more permanently decided...and the right time presented itself to bring up the subject.  
  
'I know friends are supposed to tell each other everything, but...I can't tell them about this yet. Not until the right moment comes up to tell them what's going on. That's why it's just as well that they don't even find out that I left home. I just hope they believe me. I know everyone really likes Ray...'  
  
"Are you coming?" he called over his shoulder, annoyed.  
  
With a start, she realized that she had, indeed, just been standing there, halfway up the walk, staring at the door. Blushing slightly, she hurried after him.  
  
  
  
"You'll stay in here. You can use the washroom, of course, and help yourself to whatever you find in the kitchen, but stay away from my room - that one - and from there." He indicated another door across from the guest room, with a strange greenish glow emanating from around the door.  
  
"What's in there?" she asked hesitantly, peering in fascination at the closed door.  
  
"Never mind," he replied sternly. "If you stay away from it, we should be alright."  
  
"Right," she said with a small smile.  
  
"Well...if that's all, I'm going to go see what food I've got around here. I'll leave you to get settled."  
  
"Okay. And Malcolm, thank-you again."  
  
"Sure," he replied brusquely, stepping out of the room and shutting the door.  
  
Tossing her duffel bag to the carpet as the muted 'click' echoed softly through the room, she dropped wearily to the green and blue plaid quilt covering the double bed with a sigh. For a moment, she gazed about the room, taking in every detail.  
  
It was a smallish room, though certainly not cramped though the walls with their coat of navy-blue paint - Malcolm's parents must have the same taste in colour as him, she thought with a small smile - certainly did much to provide the impression that the room was smaller than it actually was. Halfway up the wall, a wallpaper border in the pattern of the same plaid as the quilt broke the sea of navy. Two flat bronze ducks, one about the size of a television screen, and the other half that size, were nailed up on the wall across from the bed and adjacent to the window, which was hung, again, with that same blue and green plaid.  
  
A quick examination of her assigned living quarters complete, she knelt next to the bed, rummaging in her duffel bag for a book. Then, prize in hand, she propped one of the pillows on the bed against the wall, leaned against it, and began to read.  
  
Or, at any rate, pretend to read. Ten minutes of eyes skimming the lines without any participation from her brain, Sydney threw down her book in disgust and let her mind wander.  
  
Naturally, the first place her mind chose to wander was to her current situation. She was quickly coming to understand that Malcolm's offer of a place to stay in no way indicated any desire to be friends, and that it would be foolish to assume so. So, why had he offered? It was no real secret to Sydney that Malcolm disliked most people, but that his hatred for Sam and Tanker bordered on a dangerous obsession. By association, she and Amp became included in his 'List of People to Despise.' To be sure, she had had one or two civil conversations with him, a natural side effect of being acquaintances that shared the crazy characteristic of that cerebral cortex thing missing in so many of their peers.  
  
Well, even if he had no interest in being friends, she would make every effort to be pleasant and friendly.  
  
It still puzzled her exactly what he was thinking of telling his parents about all this. Come to think of it, he hadn't mentioned them once. Perhaps they were to be out of town for a time? Sydney shuddered. As much as staying here was preferable to the other current options open to her, she didn't exactly relish the thought of his parents returning to find a strange girl living alone with their teenaged son.  
  
Ah, well, perhaps his parents were to be gone over the same four-week period as hers had chosen to take their vacation.  
  
No, she decided almost immediately, that seem quite remarkably unlikely.  
  
'God, I wish they'd never left! Funny...they left me with Dad's friend because they were worried about my safety. I wonder what they'd say if they knew what was going on...'  
  
Gradually, her mind began to drift back over the past four days.  
  
Her parents had been planning their vacation to Greece for months. After a lot of poking, Sydney had persuaded them to go during the off-season, as neither her mother or her father were especially fond of people, which there would likely be in abundance during the summer, when they had originally planned to take the trip. All things told, though, October was a far more appealing time for the trip. And so they had agreed, albeit a bit reluctantly, and Sydney had inwardly rejoiced at the idea of having the house to herself for an entire month.  
  
Then her father had dropped the bomb. He was going to have a close friend of his stay with her. Not, as he hastened to assure her, because he didn't trust her; he simply didn't trust the rest of the world.  
  
Any other child might have made a huge fuss about this until their parents, out of regard for their own peace leading up to their vacation, revoked their decision. However, Sydney was not any other child. To whine and complain until she got her way simply wasn't her style. She simply bade her lovely visions of peace and quiet goodbye with a tiny sigh and remarked to herself that she would be over at Sam's a lot.  
  
When Ray Carr arrived, Callaghan Forrester greeted his friend with a hearty hug and a good deal of back-slapping and chest-bumping that made both Sydney and Marnie Forrester roll their eyes good-naturedly.  
  
When Mr. Forrester had introduced Sydney to Ray, he had greeted her hello with a friendly grin, and both Mr. and Mrs. Forrester had been able to breathe a little easier, knowing that their little girl was safe with a trustworthy friend.  
  
And to be sure, at first it had been a huge amount of fun. Ray, it seemed, was something of a party man, and believed that adolescence was a time made for 'social experiences,' usually ones that involve the adolescent losing consciousness from excessive alcohol consumption. As such, he had been very lenient where curfew was concerned, and the evening after his arrival, he had encouraged Sydney to invite over these friends of hers that she had, the night previous been in such a hurry to run off to see. Somewhat surprised, she had issued the invitation to Sam, Tanker, and Amp, and the four teens and their chaperone had put in a most enjoyable Thursday evening of comedies, ridiculously silly horror movies, and every sort of junk food under the sun.  
  
Looking back, Sydney reflected that she really should have taken warning when Ray pulled out a case of beer and downed the better portions of it. However, she, as Sam and Tanker, had simply dismissed it as 'a guy-party thing.'  
  
Amp had been slightly concerned, suggesting to Sam that perhaps Sydney should spend the night with the Collinses, or even see if Jennifer would mind her crashing with the Doyles for the next couple of days.  
  
Sydney had laughed easily at this, thanking him for the concern, but telling him that she and Ray would be fine together.  
  
Later, as she lay huddled into a little ball, with a bag of ice wrapped in a towel held carefully to her eye, already swollen and discoloured, praying that she wouldn't hear his loud, heavy footsteps approaching down the hall, she wished vainly that she hadn't so quickly dismissed Amp's well-meaning advice.  
  
Raymond Carr, it seemed, was an antithesis of his calm, placid, easy-going personality when drunk. Sydney had learned this all too well when she had inadvertently directed his irrational drunken anger her way when, during the clean-up process following the party, she had upended a little dish of salsa. The runny stuff had immediately created a mysteriously humungous stain on the carpet, and Ray had taken one look at it and let loose on her with every vile name he could think of.  
  
Anger fuelled by this - after all, the party had been his idea, and it certainly hadn't been her fault that her friends had very unpredictable habits as to where they left the remnants of their snacks; and even aside from all this, wasn't an adult supposed to have better anger management than this, rather than dealing with set-backs like some spoilt child? - she had responded with a rather cutting speech.  
  
A minute later had seen Ray storming from the house, and Sydney peeling herself off of the salsa-stained carpet.  
  
  
  
The next day when Ray had awakened and gotten sufficiently over his hangover to think, he had apologized profusely, both for his words, and for hitting her when she had arrived home from school. After a moment of hesitation, Sydney had accepted the apology, dismissing the night previous as an isolated incident despite her better instincts.  
  
However, when the event of the Thursday evening had been repeated that Friday after Ray's trip to the bar and an unfortunate incident with a misunderstanding on when she would arrive home, Sydney decided immediately that something had to be done.  
  
Her first thought had been to telephone her parents and let them know what was happening. This, she had immediately dismissed, recalling how close a friend her father considered Ray, and imagining how much it would hurt him to find out that something like this had happened.  
  
Next, she had considered the idea of staying with Sam's family until her parents returned home. However, even if Mrs. Collins had agreed, and accepted her account of events without a question, which she doubted would happen - she was already learning that Ray could be incredibly persuasive and plausible when he wanted to be - there was still the problem of the story getting back to her parents.  
  
This had automatically ruled out the rest of her friends, as well as going to the school counsellors for much the same reason.  
  
Eventually, after much deliberation, Sydney had decided to take matters into her own hands, and the next day, on time bought for her by Ray's hangover, had thrown some necessities into a duffel bag, and penned a quick note:  
  
  
  
Ray,  
  
I suppose you know why I ran.  
  
Don't worry about me; I'm fine on my own.  
  
If you try to find me, I'll go straight to the police, and I don't think you want my father to know about any of this.  
  
If you leave me alone, no one will ever hear about any of this.  
  
I'll probably be back to get a few things, but I'll make sure it's when you're out.  
  
  
  
This, she had hastily signed and taped to the fridge before grabbing her bag and slipping quickly and quietly from the house.  
  
Once outside, Sydney had found herself rather floored at exactly where to go and what to do, particularly after a quick trip to the bank had informed her that she barely had enough money in her savings account to stay at a hotel room for the weekend. What about the other three and a half weeks?  
  
This dilemma, as we have already seen, had led eventually to the young woman's extended stay at the school.  
  
Which had led to her current situation.  
  
  
  
With a sigh, Sydney picked up her book again and went back to her attempt to read. Still, though, the words seemed to blur into lines before her eyes, and her mind refused to retain a single thing. Finally, just as she had stood abruptly, deciding that a walk might be the only thing possible to focus on, a sharp rap on the door echoed through the room. Bouncing quickly off the bed, she hastened across the room to open it.  
  
"I made some spaghetti, if you're interested," Malcolm informed her, arms crossed, before turning abruptly and starting back to the kitchen.  
  
Sydney blinked at the spot he'd been occupying a second ago, stifling a slight twinge of hurt. Well, what on earth had she expected here? This was Malcolm Frink, the only person she knew who could conceivably be content with an existence as a hermit. To expect such a person to welcome her, who symbolized the loss of his solitude and privacy for close to a month, with open arms, was nothing short of ridiculous.  
  
Sternly telling herself this, she followed him down the hallway.  
  
  
  
  
  
End Notes: Well! There's another bit knocked off. I'd be astonished in anyone who was previously reading this still was. Again, I apologize for taking so long. I just wanted to put especial pains on this, due to the home situation that Sydney is running from, however temporary. My greatest fear is that someone should think that I'm using it simply for the purpose of getting Malcolm and Sydney together. I assure you, this is not my intention. The story idea was conceived long before I'd even considered writing the pairing. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
  
  
"So," Sydney began hesitantly, "what's new?"  
  
"New?" Malcolm echoed, reaching for the pepper.  
  
"Yeah. With school and everything."  
  
"Well, today I woke up and went there. I learned absolutely nothing I couldn't have learned on my own, and nothing that will help me at all in the real world. I was accosted by a group of imbeciles, some of who are suffering from voluntary ignorance, and some of who really are as stupid as they act. Then I came home. I expect to get up tomorrow morning and do it all again."  
  
A silence.  
  
"Oh, yes," he added with a ghost of a smile. "And I picked up a stray on my way home."  
  
"I...see," she said, choking back a laugh. "Way to look on the bright side, Malcolm."  
  
He rolled his eyes.  
  
"As soon as I find one, I'll look there."  
  
"Aw, there's plenty of good in the world."  
  
He set down his fork and glared at her.  
  
"Such as?"  
  
"Such as? Such as...well, we live in a country where you don't have to pay to traipse off to school and learn nothing every morning."  
  
"School fees? Textbook rentals? Added fees for electives?"  
  
"Okay, true, but at least you're able to go. You don't have to wake up every morning before dawn and work in a factory for twelve to fourteen hours. And I'm certainly glad that I don't have six children by now, all of whom are working alongside me in a factory somewhere."  
  
He smiled slightly.  
  
"First of all, I think our History unit on the Industrial Revolution is getting to you. And secondly, working oneself to the point of exhaustion has its bright sides: one needn't listen to the inane prattle of one's peers, for one thing."  
  
"Oh, thank-you," she replied, crossing her arms in mock-resentment.  
  
"Not speaking specifically of present company, of course," he added belatedly, rolling his eyes.  
  
"I was kidding. I know I can be hard to put up with sometimes."  
  
"Who told you that?" he asked, blinking in surprise.  
  
With a barely perceptible shrug, she spoke, absently playing with a dark curl that had fallen into her eyes.  
  
"I just get the feeling that being around someone who's always got her head in a book makes most people uncomfortable. Sam says that sometimes listening to me spout 'gibberish' from random textbooks gets a little annoying."  
  
"Collins! If Collins knew what the word 'gibberish' meant, I'd be astonished. Come to think of it, if Collins knew what the word 'word' meant, I'd be astonished."  
  
Sydney frowned.  
  
"Why do believe so firmly that Sam is stupid? He isn't, you know."  
  
"I would put him in the 'voluntary ignorance' category, along with about seventy-five percent of the student population."  
  
"Actually, there's a lot more going on in Sam's head than you might think. It isn't all rock music and Jennifer. Mostly, sure, but..."  
  
"Jennifer could do much better," he growled, and then blinked, seeming to remember where he was, and whom he was talking to. "I hate to disparage your friends in front of you, but-"  
  
"You do?" she said sceptically.  
  
"...No."  
  
"That's what I thought. And I'd agree with you on what you said before, about Jennifer being able to do better, except for one thing: she really, really likes him. She's happy with him. She's exactly where she wants to be, and that's really the best anyone can hope for, isn't it?"  
  
He looked away, jaw set angrily, then shrugged.  
  
"It just makes me sick to see someone like her throwing herself away on him."  
  
"I suppose you think she should throw herself away on you, instead?" she murmured, tracing random patterns over the back of the checkered green and white table cloth. She caught herself and realized exactly what she had said a moment too late. Well. So much for peace.  
  
He glanced up sharply.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"No; what did you say?"  
  
"I didn't say anything."  
  
"Yes, you did. What did you say?"  
  
"It isn't important."  
  
He glared at her coldly.  
  
"Never mind; I heard you."  
  
"I'm sorry," she said softly, uncomfortably avoiding his eyes. "That was out of line."  
  
"You're right; it was," he agreed, looking decidedly sulky for a moment. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it. "Never mind."  
  
"Really, though," she continued, looking at him entreatingly, "you should be happy for Jennifer if you really care about her at all."  
  
"Yes, well, it's a little hard, when Sam so clearly doesn't deserve her. Although," he continued with a wry smile, "Jennifer doesn't seem to be the only girl who could do better, currently throwing herself away on an idiot."  
  
"If you're talking about Amp and Yoli," she began hotly, "don't even start. Please. They're really, really happy together, and I don't think I could just sit here and listen to how Yoli deserves better, when both of them are so far beyond Cloud 9 that they've finally talked things through."  
  
"I wasn't talking about Yoli, actually," he said, amused, "so try to calm down. I was talking about you, although I'm sure you won't take that a lot better."  
  
She blinked.  
  
"Um...what?"  
  
"Think about it for a moment, Sydney. I know that you may see any number of wonderful things in Tanker, but intelligence isn't one of them. At least, if you haven't been as utterly blinded to his faults as Jennifer has to Sam's."  
  
'And as Sam has to Jennifer's...and as you have to Jennifer's,' she didn't add. Aloud, at any rate.  
  
"But-"  
  
"What DO you two have in common, anyway?" he hurried on, interrupting her.  
  
"Well-"  
  
"I can just see you two somewhere, rattling on about two entirely different things, not hearing a word the other is saying."  
  
"Well, that would be pretty likely, if we ever decided to go out again."  
  
"...Er, what?"  
  
"We're not going out anymore."  
  
"You're not."  
  
"Nope. Not that I know of."  
  
"Funny; I always thought you were. When I thought about it at all, that is."  
  
"We were for a while, but at the same time, we weren't, really. It just didn't go anywhere. I think we were both too nervous to make it work. It's funny; it's like we just sort of came to this unspoken agreement that we were better off as friends, and stopped doing 'dating things' at the same time. If we ever really started, which I'm not quite sure of. I suppose we both ignored what we felt for each other for too long, and by the time we got around to dealing with it, it was starting to fade. An inevitable problem with getting involved with a close friend. You've seen them at their best and worst, so there's nothing left to learn, really, and you feel less of a need to make an effort when you're together. All in all, too comfortable."  
  
Malcolm raised one eyebrow, suppressing a chuckle. Tanker's worst. What a horrifying thought.  
  
"So, in other words, it's like being an old married couple, but without the memories of the romance that died a slow death over the years to sustain you through the slump."  
  
"Exactly!"  
  
"Tanker still seems to get angry enough when anyone else shows an interest in you."  
  
She laughed softly.  
  
"That's never happened, actually."  
  
"Tanker getting possessive?"  
  
A faint blush crept into her cheeks, recalling the whole incident with the ill-fated Chad Williams Dream Date. Well, at least Jennifer had got some fun out of it...although Sam had been very nearly arrested for ruining the young star's trademark perfect hair with a water balloon.  
  
"Er, no. The other thing. Whenever he's seen someone as a threat, it's been totally in his head. I guess it all goes back to people being driven away by my habit of excessive reading. Only my friends seem to be able to stand it, and that's just because they're my friends."  
  
He rolled his eyes, suppressing a smile.  
  
"Sydney, I know for a fact that there isn't a single person at school that doesn't like you."  
  
"I can think of one," she murmured.  
  
"What?"  
  
She laughed softly.  
  
"And here we go again. I just meant that you've never seemed to like me much. But," she hurried on, silencing his somewhat embarrassed protest, "I understand why."  
  
"It's nothing personal. I don't really know you well enough to make a judgement there."  
  
"I know. Sam, right?"  
  
"And Tanker."  
  
"Strange..."  
  
"What is?"  
  
"Well, I understand why you don't like Sam at all, but I never thought you had anything in particular against Tanker, apart from his being insanely loyal to Sam."  
  
He sighed, pushing his plate away and leaning forward on the table.  
  
"Where exactly have you been for the past...seven, eight years? I loathe him. Possibly more than anyone else on the planet, not even barring Sam. Tanker has no brain at all, and he certainly doesn't feel any dismay over the lack. He's got a massively inflated ego to make up for it, and why? Because people hold him as some sort of deity, based on his natural aptitude for kicking a ball around a grassy field, wearing tight pants. But that's only part of it. My main problem with Tanker is this: we're agreed that it isn't necessary to like everyone in the world to be a good person, right?"  
  
"Right."  
  
"He doesn't seem to understand that. I don't like Sam. I never have. And no, it isn't all because of Jennifer, although that certainly didn't help. He just grates on me. But Tanker seems to take it personally that I don't bow down and worship Sam like everyone else at that school does."  
  
"I know; I've kind of noticed that, too. He's just insanely protective of his friends. He's that way with Amp and me, too, although I would hazard the guess that he's worse with Sam and I. But he can't seem to understand that Sam can be a little...overwhelming at times."  
  
"The rest of the school seems to love it."  
  
"They aren't around him well over half of the time," she sighed, biting back a smile.  
  
Malcolm lifted an eyebrow.  
  
"Oh? What does that mean?"  
  
"Well, I love Sam like a brother, but...he is overwhelming. He's always got to be doing something. If you're quiet for a second, he chalks it up to deep depression right away, when it's just in some peoples' natures to be quiet every now and again. And...well, he gloats. A lot. If you know him, you know not to take it too seriously; most of it's in good fun. But if you don't know him, and you aren't used to it, he can come across as the most arrogant person on the face of the planet. But," she finished sheepishly, "I probably shouldn't be complaining about Sam to you."  
  
"I don't mind," he assured her. "And I don't see it as complaining. It's actually rather nice to know that there are other people who see him as less than perfect."  
  
"Less than perfect?" she echoed. "What about Principal Pratchert? And Mrs. Starkey? Heck, the entire teaching staff, if you want to get technical?"  
  
"They certainly make more exceptions for him than for everyone else," he snorted.  
  
"That isn't true! Sam gets punished just as harshly for his stupid mistakes as everyone else does!"  
  
"But the teachers have an air of reluctance when it comes to punishing him."  
  
"First of all, I disagree; I've seen Principal Pratchert fairly cackling with glee over punishing Sam. But even if you do get that sense, I bet I can explain why."  
  
"So, go ahead," he invited, leaning back and crossing his arms.  
  
"Well, it's because Sam has this way of making everyone feel like someone special, like his best friend. Teachers aren't just teachers; they're people. They need and deserve the same consideration as anyone else. That means that if a student treats them warmly, they'll respond with warmth. Sam treats them warmly, and so they feel more comfortable expressing what reluctance they might feel to punish him. If a teacher shows that same reluctance to a student who doesn't particularly like them, it might seem like they're patronizing the student. Do you follow?"  
  
"I...have no idea what you're talking about."  
  
"Me, neither," she admitted with a self-deprecating laugh. "It made a lot more sense before I tried to put it into words."  
  
He smiled slightly.  
  
"No, I understand, now that I think about it. Certain teachers hit it off with certain students, and Sam's just easier to get along with than I am."  
  
"Than most people are, actually."  
  
"Everyone's easier to get along with than I am. Not that I think the problem is with me. Honestly, if a group of more mentally dead people exist anywhere than at our school, I don't want to know about it."  
  
Sydney hesitated for a moment. How to best respond to this? Something told her that to chastise him about how he should be nicer to his fellow students would only start a fight. But to laugh wouldn't likely help in the long run, either. Finally, she spoke up.  
  
"Well...I'm getting along with you fine right now, aren't I?"  
  
He frowned. All right, so she had a point there. Certainly, he had so far found her a lot easier to put up with than he had expected; there had been no inane prattle filled with tales of Sam Collins' rock band beyond her letting him know that she had a practice tomorrow, and she hadn't said so much as a word about any of her three band-mates, until he had started a conversation. She didn't giggle about boys, much to his infinite relief, and she hadn't even launched into a complicated and utterly mind-numbing explanation of some obscure and likely useless scientific principle that she'd been reading up on earlier. To be sure, he had begun to wonder briefly if their conversation wouldn't end in an argument when she had brought up Jennifer and his temper had fired up almost against his will, but perhaps she had seen that she'd accidentally stepped into a minefield, recalled exactly how he felt about the lovely, and unavailable, cheerleader, and they'd been able to sidestep the topic and its imminent disaster. All in all, he found himself almost enjoying the company, something he was damned sure he wouldn't have found had he been with almost anyone else.  
  
"There's a reason."  
  
"Of course there is," she agreed. "You're making an effort not to be a total jerk."  
  
"Actually, I'm not," he retorted coolly. "Believe it or not, Sydney, I can be a decent person without putting forth a concentrated effort."  
  
"That wasn't what I-" she began, but was interrupted as he stood.  
  
"Forget it. I'll see you later. Just leave your plate in the sink. I'll take care of it tomorrow."  
  
With that, he dropped his own dishes into the sink with a clatter and strode quickly from the room.  
  
As the sound of his footsteps grew more distant, followed by the faint noise of a door being slammed, Sydney blinked in astonishment. Okay, exactly what had just happened?  
  
'Aw, it's just Malcolm being Malcolm,' a little voice at the back of her mind piped up. 'You ought to be grateful that you had that much of a conversation with him without one of you storming away angrily.'  
  
'That isn't true,' another voice averred. 'You said something that hurt him. You ought to go find out what, and apologize for it.'  
  
She pondered this for a long while, eventually reaching a compromise. Her resolve to be as pleasant and friendly as possible hadn't faded, and had indeed grown stronger with the realization that getting along with Malcolm wouldn't be utterly impossible. However, something told her that going to him and trying to apologize now would be a bad idea. He would likely see it as her attempts to placate a grumpy child, and that certainly wouldn't go over well when the source of the conflict seemed to have been her statement that he was only agreeable when he tried to be.  
  
With a sigh, she stood and set her dishes in the sink, and then started up to the guest room to start on her homework, telling herself firmly that thinking before she spoke would be a good idea when dealing with someone who didn't have the same elephant hide that Sam, Tanker, and Amp did.  
  
'Tomorrow's another day,' she told herself. 'And tomorrow you will work to make him NOT regret letting you stay here.'  
  
  
  
  
  
End Notes: Wow...I think all characterization flew neatly out the window at some point during this chapter. I guess it all depends on your view of Malcolm, though. It's always seemed to me that Malcolm and Sydney would get along well enough if they ever had a conversation without Sam or Tanker being around. Maybe that's just the 'shipper in me speaking, though. ^_^ I might have made Malcolm a little too...sociable, a little too quickly. Let me know, alright?  
  
Oh, and I think I should just accept that the chapters of this story are going to be short ones. Maybe they'll pick up later, but for now, there are going to be a lot of little chapters, instead of a few big ones. Hope no one minds! ^_^ 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
  
  
"Hey, Syd!"  
  
Sydney whirled about, and broke into a warm smile, her first completely genuine one in several days, as her gaze lit upon Sam Collins, waving frantically at her from their ordinary table in the school cafeteria, Tanker and Amp on either side of him, also waving frantically.  
  
"Hi, guys!" she greeted happily, hurrying across the cafeteria and sliding into a chair between Sam and Amp.  
  
"Hi," Tanker returned with a smile and a nod. Although neither would have admitted it, friendship between him and the dark-haired girl genius had become slightly strained after their mutually agreed-upon, but never spoken of break-up of only a month before. Both knew beyond a doubt that it had been for the best, but it still became awkward at times. It was gradually fading, though, and both hoped desperately that it would disappear completely in time.  
  
Amp said nothing, engrossed as he was in his little tube of soap-bubble soap.  
  
"So, what's the quirk of the day?" Sydney murmured, leaning in closer to the other two boys.  
  
Tanker snickered slightly.  
  
"He's been playing with that all day. He swears that he got a bubble that looked like Joan of Arc earlier today, and he's been trying for Lady Godiva ever since," Sam replied.  
  
Then, as he straightened up, he fixed Sydney with a reproachful gaze.  
  
"So, where've you been for the last two days, kiddo?"  
  
"Um...what do you mean?" she asked, frowning, and praying desperately that she was a better actor than she thought she was.  
  
"You know what we mean, Syd," Sam said sternly. "You haven't been home all weekend, or for the past two days! And every time we've called your house, there's been no answer."  
  
"And when we go there," Tanker put in, "Ray tells us you're just at the library, and you'll be home soon."  
  
"And then when we go to the library," Sam finished, "you aren't there."  
  
"O-oh," she stammered, flushing guiltily. "Well, I don't know. Chalk it up to bad timing, I suppose."  
  
"To 'just miss you' at your house AND at the library, once a day for the last five days?" Sam said dubiously. "I don't think so."  
  
"Do you think I was lying?" she demanded sharply.  
  
"No, no," Sam hastened to assure her. "It just seemed a little weird, that's all."  
  
"Well, it's the truth," Sydney retorted. "Maybe I was at a different library."  
  
"The university library again?" Tanker groaned.  
  
"Yeah," she hastened to confirm. He'd just inadvertently let her out of a really tight corner, and she certainly wasn't going to let it slip past. "Ray didn't ask which library I was going to, and I didn't see any reason to tell him."  
  
Sam shrugged uneasily.  
  
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Sorry for kind of jumping on you there, but we were just worried."  
  
"I understand," the young woman assured him, her tone softening slightly. She hadn't really meant to yell at anyone, but it really, really wasn't the time to tell her three best friends about any of this.  
  
An uncomfortable silence descended over the table, contrasting with the easy bustle and commotion of the cafeteria.  
  
Tanker looked on the verge of saying something more, as he took a deep breath and leaned forward, but he was cut off as the bell rang, signalling the start of classes in five minutes. Inwardly praising whatever higher powers might be controlling their existence, Sydney gathered her stack of books together.  
  
"I'll see you guys later, alright?"  
  
Amp looked up as she leapt from her seat and bolted from the cafeteria.  
  
"Was that Sydney?" he wanted to know. "When did she get here? We haven't seen her around a lot lately..."  
  
  
  
Malcolm grit his teeth as he, as per his usual habit, kept close tabs on the conversation between Collins and his three friends. Why did that idiot have to keep hounding her about where she had been? She obviously didn't want to talk about it, but naturally, he just had to keep backing her into a corner.  
  
Before it could cross his mind that he was doing Sam, who was expressing natural concern for a friend and wasn't being QUITE so pushy about it as all that, a disservice, the peal of the warning bell shook him from his thoughts. Amid the stampede of students attempting to make their classes on time, he pulled out his sketchpad, turned to a fresh page, and started an outline, quite on a whim. After all, he had all of first period to put in. He had made it a habit to arrive at the school early on Wednesdays, although he had the first time block free, in hopes of seeing Jennifer for a few minutes before classes began. That seemed to be the day she traditionally put in the time before school with Sam and his friends.  
  
Today had been an exception, but Malcolm had quite forgotten to be disappointed when what had proved to be a very interesting conversation had sprung up. He had learned, much to his surprise, that none of Sydney's friends had any more idea what was going on than he had. To be sure, he had told her that he could care less what was going on to make her leave home, but in truth, he was becoming rather anxious to know...for the purposes of using it against her, he told himself.  
  
Either way, he would find out eventually.  
  
  
  
It was truly amazing, Sydney reflected during Mr. Hickson's geography class two hours later, how much easier it was to concentrate on one's class lectures when one was not trying to work the numerous aches and pains inevitable when sleeping on the floor, from one's back. Once again, a wave of gratitude toward Malcolm swept over her. Not exactly her favourite person, even after their successful try at a civilised conversation the previous night, but he did have a comfortable spare bedroom bed!  
  
Where most of the lectures of the past two days had flown straight over her head until she could borrow the notes from a friend and figure it out on her own, today she was absorbing every bit of information avidly, even the ones she already knew - after all, a different take on the same thing could always be interesting - as was her wont.  
  
And was not, she added with an inward smile as her gaze lit on the tall, dark-haired figure garbed in a football jacket and seated in the desk ahead of hers and slumped over that same desk's surface, Tanker's wont.  
  
"Tank!" she hissed, unable to resist the temptation of poking him in the back with a pencil as a snore escaped him. How it was that Mr. Hickson didn't notice Tanker and his catnaps nearly every class, Sydney could never figure out.  
  
As he was jolted back into awareness, Tanker sat bolt upright, barely repressing a shout of surprise. He turned to mock-glare at her.  
  
"What was that for?" he mouthed.  
  
"Nice nap?" she mouthed back.  
  
Shaking his head with a fond, helpless smile, he turned back to his notebook, blank save for the various and sundry drool stains. Then he turned back to her again.  
  
"Can I borrow those later?" he mouthed, pointing at her page of neatly copied notes.  
  
  
  
"So, band practice still happening tonight, everyone?" Sam asked in an authoritative sort of voice that made it more of a command than a question, leaning forward on the brightly decorated surface of their usual table within the cafeteria.  
  
Tanker shrugged.  
  
"I'd be over there anyway."  
  
"Me, too," Sydney agreed quickly.  
  
"That'd be a switch from the last few days," Tanker muttered.  
  
Amp set down his tube of soap bubbles long enough to shoot him a warning look, and he shrugged apologetically.  
  
"Uhm...so it's all set, then?" Sam said, eager to get the topic off of anything that might lead to a fight. After all, Team Samurai had a ton of practicing to do if they ever wanted another gig, and it was unbelievably awkward to rehearse with two members barely speaking to one another. "We'll meet at my place at five."  
  
"Or we could all just head there right after school," Amp suggested.  
  
Tanker shook his head.  
  
"I've got a football practice right after school today," he told everyone apologetically.  
  
"No problem, Tank," Sam shrugged. "Just come over when you can. Amp, if you want to come with me right after school, that's great. Syd? What about you?"  
  
"Um...I'll come with you guys, too," she said, inwardly drawing a breath of relief at the knowledge that she could probably spend most of the evening there. At least some parts of her routine wouldn't be lost...  
  
"Cool," Sam nodded. "Hey, Tank, did you get the notes from Hickson's geography lecture today?"  
  
Tanker rubbed his forehead sheepishly.  
  
"Actually, man, I was kind of asleep..."  
  
Sam rolled his eyes.  
  
"Again? Okay, then; Syd? Can I borrow your notes?"  
  
"Can I borrow them after?" Tanker added.  
  
Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, Sydney unclipped the sheets of paper from her binder and handed them to the young men across the table, who became immediately engrossed in copying them into their own binders.  
  
"So, how about you, Amp? Did you miss the lecture, too?"  
  
"Lecture?" Amp repeated, bemused.  
  
"Er...right."  
  
  
  
The day had been a trying one for Malcolm. To be sure, most days were trying ones when you were, as Malcolm firmly believed himself to be, a misunderstood artistic genius being cruelly and unjustly denied the praise you deserved. But this day had been particularly trying.  
  
The most immediate of his problems was that he was tired. Exhausted, actually. Although he would have died a most painful and horrifying death before he would have admitted it to anyone, his conversation with Sydney had weighed heavily on his mind, and had kept him awake throughout much of the previous night. It had annoyed him inexplicably that she seemed to think him a generally and naturally cruel, petty, and spiteful person. After all, he had never been particularly cruel to her. Rude, perhaps, but not cruel. The Mega-Virus monsters he had created with the specific function of making her life miserable temporarily slipped his memory. Those had been, in his opinion, deserved.  
  
Come to think of it, when was the last time before this had all begun that he had even spoken to her? And why should she judge his personality based on how he treated her friends, when it was easily clear that they had never been particularly nice to him, aside from Collins' horribly patronizing attempts at kindness, like a person throwing a bone to a dog? She shouldn't judge, of course.  
  
After all this, it need not be stated that another of the causes of Malcolm's having a particularly bad day was the fact that dwelling constantly on his conversation with Sydney well into the day had made him incredibly absent-minded. He had spent that day walking into walls, tripping over things, and walking into people, which caused him to immediately slip into familiar territory and snap at them to watch where they were going. This had, of course, prompted several angry responses, and more than one full-blown confrontation had broken out.  
  
All in all, every bit of misfortune that had befallen him today could easily be traced back to Sydney. Under such circumstances, he would ordinarily have sent a Mega-Virus of some sort to teach her the inadvisability of reproaching him on his social skills (although, ironically, she would have no way of ever knowing that the lesson had been from him).  
  
This idea he dismissed immediately out of hand, uneasily telling himself that it had more to do with the fact that she was currently staying with him, and there was a chance he might be caught in his own trap, and less to do with the earnestness in those large brown eyes as she had listened intently to him the day before.  
  
No, if anyone needed to be punished, Malcolm reflected as he entered the cafeteria, glaring at a tall figure garbed in a football jacket seated at a nearby table, it was Tanker.  
  
  
  
For indeed, Tanker had been the other half of one of the more nasty confrontation involving Malcolm. It wasn't that the confrontation was unexpected, or anything special, but unlike the normal state of things, Tanker had managed to really get to him, with several remarks about his being a pinhead who had no friends, which was the number he deserved to have.  
  
Damn sleep deprivation. It could make a person so touchy.  
  
And touchiness could make a person actually put effort into his retaliations, rather than just sneering out the same half-assed insults he ordinarily reserved for Tanker and Amp. No, today, he had zeroed in on Tanker's weakest point: his suspicion that football skills were all he had to offer the world, and that he had no brain, no personality to speak of, and absolutely nothing that made him at all unique.  
  
Naturally, this had cut to the quick, and Malcolm had found himself thrown into a locker, still smarting under the Tanker's comments as the other boy strode of angrily.  
  
Still, despite all this, he wasn't really in the mood to be sending out viruses today, what with the process of sketching out the perfect design, coming up with a function, and, the most difficult process, arguing with Kilokhan until he gave it life and sent it forth.  
  
It was aggravating, though. Tanker had done something that had been done only a handful of times, and something that he believed was very difficult to do. The idiot jock had stumbled upon one of the few things that could genuinely hurt him.  
  
  
  
With the memory of this minor incident still running through his mind, Malcolm had opted against staying in the cafeteria that day, and had turned to leave almost immediately.  
  
As he turned to go, though...  
  
"Hi, Malcolm! How was your day?"  
  
He turned slowly to glare at the source of the question, which seemed to have come from the table he was most anxious to avoid.  
  
"Not good, then?" Sydney inquired, hiding a smile.  
  
"You could say that," he sighed.  
  
"It's going to get a lot worse if you don't beat it," Tanker growled.  
  
"Tanker!" Sydney and Sam exclaimed together. Amp looked rather as though he sympathized with Tanker. After all, this was the last thing any of them needed at this point in the day.  
  
Both young men ignored the admonishment.  
  
"So, Tanker, have you evolved beyond the intelligence of primordial ooze yet?" Malcolm smirked, earning an angry snarl of,  
  
"Screw off!" from the football player.  
  
"How original."  
  
"How about if I shatter your nose? That original enough for you?"  
  
"Tanker!" Sam tried again.  
  
Again, this was ignored.  
  
"Oh, of course. Physical prowess can override complete and utter mental atrophy easily. I suppose that's how you got into high school in the first place."  
  
Sam and Sydney exchanged worried looks. This was NOT a good topic to broach with Tanker right now. Neither knew of the near-fight between the two boys in the hallway earlier, but they did know that the subject of intelligence was a sensitive one with Tanker most days, and doubly so today for some reason.  
  
"Malcolm," Sam began quietly. "Please don't bring this up."  
  
"Why? The truth hurts?"  
  
"So does a fist embedded in your ribs," Tanker said with a dark scowl, already rolling up his sleeves and balling his hands into fists.  
  
"Tanker!" Sydney barked, apparently loudly and sharply enough to make some impression.  
  
Tanker looked astonished.  
  
"What?"  
  
"What do you mean, what?" she demanded. "You're really not helping the situation by threatening violence every four seconds! And you know, he didn't do anything to warrant an attack this time."  
  
"He's Malcolm," the quarterback ground out, his eyes registering hurt that his friends seemed to have abandoned him. "He would have, if we'd left him the chance. He always does. You KNOW that! And even if he hadn't, he has no reason to think that he can be a jerk all his life, and then he can just make friends automatically as soon as he wants to. It'll serve the little tumour right if he's alone for the rest of his life," he finished, shooting the smaller boy a piercing glare, thus missing the incredulous stares he was receiving from Sam, Sydney, and Amp. It was, after all, a rather surprising amount of insight on the part of Tanker. Still...  
  
"Tanker..." Amp began, quite uncertain of whether he meant to console or reproach his friend.  
  
However, before he could say anything more a swirl of motion caught their attention as Malcolm stormed from the bustling cafeteria.  
  
Tanker dropped into his chair with a heavy sigh.  
  
"I know what you're going to say," he muttered, fixing Sam with a steady gaze.  
  
"No, big guy. He was as out of line as you were," Sam said, shaking his head as he took a seat beside his lifelong best friend.  
  
"Definitely," Amp agreed. "Right, Syd?"  
  
She nodded thoughtfully.  
  
"Both of you just spoke before you thought. It happens to everyone."  
  
Tanker shot his friends each a grateful smile in turn, then stood.  
  
"Well, I've got to get to practice. See you later."  
  
"Bye," Sam called to the retreating youth, and then turned to Amp and Sydney. "So, what do you guys want to do when we get to my house?"  
  
"Watch a video?" Amp suggested. "Nap in front of the TV? Make a soufflé?"  
  
"No soufflé, Amp," Sam replied sternly. "That cooking class...I just don't know why you didn't drop it."  
  
"The art of a good soufflé is a valuable thing to know," Amp informed Sam seriously.  
  
"Whatever, Amp," the sandy-haired youth laughed before turning to Sydney. "Hey, Syd? What do you think we should do?"  
  
Sydney tore her fixed gaze away from the doorway of the cafeteria, and her mind from its wanderings.  
  
"Um...what?"  
  
"You okay, Syd?" Amp asked, his brow furrowed in concern.  
  
"Oh, yeah, fine," she replied, too quickly and too brightly.  
  
Sam and Amp exchanged dubious looks.  
  
"If you're sure," Amp said with a shrug, still watching her closely.  
  
"Yup, I'm fine. Um...guys? I've gotta go do something."  
  
"But we're leaving in a minute!" Sam protested. The last thing he needed was to hang around the school for two more hours because Syd 'needed' to study something she already knew inside and out...  
  
"Well, then...you two go ahead. I'll walk over when I'm done."  
  
"You sure? If it's only a couple minutes, we can wait," Sam offered.  
  
"That's fine," she assured them. "You two go ahead. I'll see you later, okay?"  
  
The two teens shrugged and nodded, and Sydney climbed to her feet, swung her book bag over her shoulder, and started to the exit of the cafeteria.  
  
'I hope this doesn't turn out as badly as I know it will,' she thought, sighing heavily as she scanned the hallway for Malcolm. 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
  
  
  
  
  
"I swear, that pinheaded...asshole is going to wish he'd never been born," Malcolm muttered angrily to himself as he typed furiously away on the laptop propped up in his locker. He could have just as easily waited to set his scheme of revenge on 'that pinheaded asshole,' known to the rest of the student populace as Tanker, until he got home, but this just hadn't been able to wait. Although Malcolm would never have admitted it to anyone, he didn't want to wait until he got home to unleash his virus for fear that his conscience might talk him out of it.  
  
His plan was, basically, to put a mega-virus monster into the circuitry of Tanker's car (and a few others, if Kilokhan insisted) that would lay dormant until the car was started, and then would send an electrical charge into his brain that would increase his level of aggression, violence, impatience, and inconsiderateness. In other words, the worst case of road rage ever seen.  
  
"Kilokhan, I call you," he muttered, leaning closer to the screen of his laptop. After all, the last thing he needed was to be heard, and to have to deal with a lot of stupid questions about why he was talking to his locker.  
  
"Kilokhan is here," the enigmatic program announced, flashing onto the screen. "What does the meat-thing have for me today?"  
  
"This virus is going to infect the circuitry of a car. When the car is started, the driver will become unable to think rationally, as his impatience, irritability, and poor judgement skyrocket."  
  
"And what use is this to me?" Kilokhan demanded.  
  
"Utter chaos on the roads," Malcolm replied immediately with a calculated evil smile. What did it matter that he didn't really care whether or not the virus went to any cars other than Tanker's? Kilokhan would eat this up. Good God, he was predictable! There were few people that Malcolm conversed with on a daily basis with whom he could easily plan the conversation ahead of time. And the fact that there were few people he conversed with on a daily basis at all had no bearing on the situation.  
  
"Ah! This has merit. All roadways blocked by carnage. The meat-thing world thrown into peril. Totally vulnerable to the conquering fist of Kilokhan!"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Now, send the virus into this car so we can...test it out," Malcolm instructed, typing in Tanker's license plate number.  
  
Kilokhan made a sound remarkably like a comically evil laugh.  
  
"I shall send it into the specified vehicle. And soon, the world shall be mine for the taking!"  
  
Malcolm smiled to himself. And even better, Tanker would have his just payment for being an ass. He moved to shut off his laptop and get himself home before Kilokhan could unleash the virus on all vehicles and totally incapacitate the road systems. He had spent long enough today at this hellhole that the faculty liked to call high school. However, before he could shut down the small computer, he heard a soft, hesitant voice from behind him.  
  
"Malcolm?"  
  
With a startled shout, he slammed his laptop shut and whirled about.  
  
"What do you want?" he demanded, glaring at the girl behind him.  
  
Sydney bit the corner of her lip nervously, unconsciously winding the corner of that weird stringy vest that she wore and that Malcolm could never understand around her fingers.  
  
"Well...I just wanted to apologize."  
  
Malcolm sniffed contemptuously, crossing his arms.  
  
"Why? Because you hang around with assholes?"  
  
"W-well, no. I know that Tanker didn't mean what he said."  
  
"Ah. And how do you 'know' this?"  
  
"Because he said so. He said he spoke before he thought, and he wished he hadn't. He was just...mad. You know, what you said really hurt him."  
  
"It was true, though."  
  
Sydney ground her teeth.  
  
"And so was most of what he said about you," she shot back without thinking. Then she sighed, closing her eyes briefly. "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair."  
  
He shrugged, turning away and not replying.  
  
"If it changes anything, I know that what Tanker said was unfair, too," she continued.  
  
"And what is that supposed to mean to me?" he demanded, turning to face her again. "I don't need you to defend me from your friends. I have no problem with your staying with me, if you stay the hell out of my way. I don't know what impression you got, but I have no interest in being your friend, and to be honest, this little act of yours, trying to 'bring the lost souls back to the fold and teach them the joys of friendship' is beginning to make my brain melt. Find another goddamned charity case, please."  
  
For a moment, the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead was the only sound to be heard in the hallway as she simply stared at him, slightly stunned, and wishing that that absurd lump forming in her throat would go away. After all, why the heck should she feel like crying simply because the most antisocial person she'd ever met didn't want to be friends?  
  
Still, one night of slightly more sufficient rest in an unfamiliar house rather than the hard, tiled floor of the school cafeteria hadn't done a lot to put to rights her emotional state, thrown utterly out of whack over the past six days. Steeled as she had been for a reaction like this, she had started out oversensitive, and weepy. His words stung, and entirely against her will, the tears came.  
  
He sighed, rolling his eyes slightly, a gesture that a part of him was glad she had missed. She had managed to turn away almost quickly enough, but he still caught a glimpse of the drops sliding down her cheeks. Well, she had asked for trouble. What had made her approach him like she had, in the first place? If she was going to go around, bugging people who would obviously rather be left alone, she was just asking for her feelings to be hurt.  
  
Still, this rationalization did nothing to stave off a sharp pang of guilt as she exited the hallway with a deliberately unaffected carriage that would have done nothing to fool the most gullible of people, and a soft sniffle drifted back toward him.  
  
And so, since it couldn't be fended off by rationalization, Malcolm did his best to ignore it, replacing it with glorious thoughts of what might happen to Tanker when his virus took effect. With any luck, the bastard would be locked up for reckless driving. Ah, well, whatever happened, it would probably be best to be indoors and well off the road when it happened.  
  
He continued with the task of shutting down his computer and gathering together his books, wondering at the back of his mind if she would try to talk to him again this evening, and wondering even further back in his mind if perhaps he should be the one to speak first.  
  
Catching this thought before it could spiral out of control and turn into a solid intention to do so, he slammed his locker shut and started from the school.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Sam," Amp began tentatively as the two boys exited the school, relishing their freedom as the heavy red wooden doors slammed shut behind them, "do you think maybe Syd was lying about being at the library for the last few days? I don't know; I think there's more going on here than she'll say."  
  
"Yeah, I get that sense, too," Sam admitted with a sigh. "But Syd's probably got a good reason for not wanting to talk about it."  
  
Amp looked dubious as he raised an arm to shield his eyes from the glare of the late afternoon sun, reflected off of a nearby car windshield.  
  
"Maybe...but I'd really like to know where she got that black eye."  
  
"She said she walked into a wall."  
  
"I don't believe that."  
  
"Look, Amp, I really think it's better to just give her some space right now. Syd's smart. She wouldn't try to deal with anything on her own if she couldn't handle it."  
  
'Yeah; she's smart enough not to walk into a wall, for one thing,' Amp reflected silently, 'and way too independent for her own good, too.'  
  
Still, trying to get Sam worked up about it would do no good when, as Sam had said, Sydney obviously didn't want any of them to know anything.  
  
Thus deciding, Amp absently dug into his pocket and produced his tube of bubbles. By gum, he would create that elusive Lady Godiva bubble if it were the last thing he ever did!  
  
  
  
  
  
'I hate him,' Sydney thought viciously to herself fifteen minutes later, all embarrassing trace of tears long since scrubbed meticulously away in the school's ladies' room. She shoved the red wooden double doors of the school open with a slam that made more than one passer-by hasten past a little more quickly, reflecting that this poor young soul must be experiencing that ever-common phenomenon known as 'boy trouble.'  
  
Barely noticing this, she delivered a violent kick to an innocent soda can lying nearby. The can skittered down the sidewalk and bounced into the gutter with a satisfying clatter.  
  
'Sam's insane to think that he's really a good person somewhere deep down. He isn't, and he never will be, because he doesn't WANT to be. Anyone who gets his kicks upsetting people...'  
  
At this point, she shoved firmly from her mind the recollection that Malcolm hadn't actually gone out of his way to upset Tanker that day, and that he'd probably been as far past rational as Tanker had by the time she had tried to talk to him. And inviting her to use his family's spare bedroom was certainly a long way from getting kicks from seeing her upset. This thought, too, was shoved pointedly away. No, she wasn't going to think about any of that. The fact that he hadn't gone out of his way to get to one of her friends was, as far as she could see, a rare case. And anyone could keep himself from blowing up at the wrong person, if they only put a little effort into it. And as for the previous afternoon...  
  
Hah! It was like Tanker had said: one act of kindness or civility couldn't wipe out years of being mean and nasty. And for all she knew, he was planning on using his generosity to his own advantage - and her or her friends' disadvantage - somehow.  
  
The uncomfortable knowledge that this was completely and utterly paranoid, and likely untrue quickly joined the previous thoughts that she had found more pleasant when ignored, and was shoved from her mind.  
  
The way she saw it, she was entitled to her own irrational bouts of anger every now and again. Being an ordinarily rational person kept her from them most of the time, and really, working oneself into a lather of rage that could safely guard against being bothered by ridiculous hurt feelings had its good points. She was beginning to understand why Jennifer indulged in irrational anger towards Sam so often.  
  
And so she continued down the street at a pace much faster than her usual one, seething.  
  
'Stay out of his way? Gladly. I'd almost rather deal with Ray than-' This thought, she squelched immediately. Or rather, it squelched itself. No, she would NOT rather deal with Ray. There could be few things worse than feeling unsafe in her own home, being in physical danger at all times for the next four weeks. And one of those few things was definitely not the prickles and stings that was Malcolm's personality.  
  
From this point, the wave of anger began to ebb, and by the time she had reached the playground two blocks from Sam's house, it had all but receded. Instead, she found herself with a sort of rueful sensation that she had made herself quite ridiculous in how she had reacted to him, both in tears and in temper. Thank goodness he had no way of knowing about the second. Thank goodness no one did.  
  
Still, it is never pleasant to realize that one has made oneself ridiculous, whether it was observed or not, particularly when one is unused to acting like a fool, as Sydney undoubtedly was. Perhaps it was this, perhaps it was the unpleasant anticipation of being indebted to someone who had just made it clear that they wanted neither friendliness nor friendship, or perhaps it was the deeper bitter ache that came with any rejection, no matter how small or insignificant. Whatever the reason for it, by the time she reached the Collins home, she found herself dangerously close to tears again.  
  
'Oh, this is bad. I really, really need to get some sleep tonight,' she reflected mournfully, ringing the bell and greeting Mrs. Collins politely as she answered and delivered the routine 'they're-all-downstairs-go-on- down-and-tell-them-to-bring-their-dishes-up' speech.  
  
She plastered on a smile as she replied that she would pass along the message, and then took off downstairs, making sure the forced smile was still in place. She grimaced inwardly. After all, she would have some time explaining to the guys that she was depressed because Malcolm Frink didn't want to be her friend.  
  
"Hey, guys," she called cheerfully, rounding the bend in the staircase that led to Sam's room.  
  
Sam, the telephone receiver pressed to his ear, held up a hand to indicate that he would talk to her in a minute, when his conversation had ended.  
  
'Sorry,' she mouthed, tiptoeing quickly and quietly into the room and taking a seat next to Amp on Sam's bed. "Jennifer?" she murmured to him with a knowing smile.  
  
Amp shook his head, looking worried.  
  
"I don't think so. He doesn't usually look this serious when he's talking to Jennifer...unless they're breaking up again..."  
  
"That's true," Sydney frowned, for the first time noticing the intent, worried expression on the young man's face. "I wonder who it is..."  
  
"Oh, God. Is everyone alright?" Sam was meanwhile demanding. "Okay...Okay.They can't? Hey, no problem. Just sit tight, buddy. Alright. Bye."  
  
"Well?" Sydney prompted as he set the phone down, she and Amp both watching him expectantly.  
  
"Guys," Sam began heavily as he set the phone back down in the cradle. "That was Tanker. He's at the police station. He just got into a really huge car crash on his way here from football practice."  
  
Amp put out a hand steady Sydney, who had stood at the words 'police station,' and who was now growing so white that both boys thought she might pass out.  
  
"Is he hurt?" she demanded, quickly banishing panic from her mind.  
  
"No, no, everyone's fine, aside from bumps and bruises. But the cars are both totalled, and Tanker's pretty shaken up."  
  
"Who was at fault?" Amp asked, startling both of his friends as he guided Sydney, who was now trembling rather uncontrollably in relief, to a chair.  
  
"It...it sounds like Tank was totally at fault. That's what he says, anyway."  
  
"Are his parents going down there for him?" Sydney asked briskly, determined to keep her number of emotional outbursts that day at a reasonable two.  
  
"They weren't home. That's why he called here."  
  
Amp nodded, standing up.  
  
"Then we'd better get going, quick."  
  
The other two teens nodded their agreement, and the three started upstairs to beg the use of the Collins family vehicle from Mrs. Collins.  
  
  
  
End Notes: Wow...this chapter was a lot shorter than it was going to be. Of course, it was also going to advance the plot a lot more than it did. Ah, well. I think having both of our dear little main characters dwell on how they're relating to one another a little bit was equally important. The plot advancement WILL happen next chapter. ^_^  
  
Anyway, thank-you for reading.  
  
[Hands everyone reading a Slurpee, then bounces away happily] 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
  
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"I just don't know what happened," Tanker groaned, the words muffled as he buried his head in his hands, elbows propped up on his knees. "I got behind the wheel, and suddenly it was like I was a totally different person, and all I cared about was getting where I was going as fast as possible, and anyone who got in my way could just fuck off and die. Hell, even traffic laws meant nothing."  
  
He looked up just in time to see Sam and Sydney exchanging dubious glances.  
  
"Don't look like that, guys," he implored. "You know I've never, ever been that way before."  
  
"No, we know," Sydney assured him, walking around behind the recliner in which he was seated and rubbing his shoulder sympathetically.  
  
"Yeah," Sam agreed from the chair next to his. "You're usually too much the other way: too timid."  
  
"What exactly happened?" Amp wanted to know.  
  
Tanker sighed.  
  
"Great, make me relive the gory details."  
  
"Oh...well, don't talk about it if you don't want to..."  
  
"No, it's my own stupid mistake. I deserve to relive it. I was at a stoplight, and the light for the people going through the other way was turning yellow. So I jumped the gun and started to go, but I didn't get out of the way fast enough. There was a guy coming through the other way at top speed - I mean, it was still yellow, and all - and he plowed right into me."  
  
"Oh, man," Sam breathed.  
  
"We both went off the road, and I went down a hill. My car flipped over on the way down. When I got to the top of the hill, I found out his had hit a traffic pole, and started on fire. It just...exploded! Before I got out of my car, and I heard this huge bang, and I thought it was MY engine. I'll tell you, I got outta there quick." He sighed again. "But I just feel like such a huge IDIOT! Why did I start to go like that? I think I even saw the guy coming toward me, but...I just didn't care. I figured he'd have to stop for me, even though he couldn't."  
  
Sam closed his eyes briefly.  
  
"We're glad you're okay, Tank. A car's just a car. You're what's important, man."  
  
"I don't think my folks'll see it that way," Tanker groaned. "I'm never gonna be allowed to drive again. And I don't want to."  
  
"Your parents will just be glad you're alright, too," Sydney insisted.  
  
At this point, Mrs. Collins appeared downstairs.  
  
"How are you holding up?" she asked the quarterback, resting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.  
  
"I feel like the biggest jerk ever, but other than that, I'm fine. Thanks, Mrs. Collins," he finished almost as an afterthought.  
  
"You're welcome. And your parents are here. They came over as soon as they found the message on the machine."  
  
"Oh, great," he sighed, starting up the stairs after the bustling, rosy- cheeked woman who looked upon her son's friends as her own children, and coddled and fretted as such.  
  
At this sigh, she turned and fixed him with a stern eye.  
  
"Tanker, don't. I know for a fact that they're both just relieved that you're safe."  
  
"Okay," he agreed quickly, knowing enough not to push the issue.  
  
"See you, Tank," Sam called as he disappeared around the bend in the staircase. "And good luck!"  
  
When the footsteps faded away, Sam let out a breath that he had been unconsciously holding.  
  
"Wow. What a day, huh?"  
  
"Yeah," Amp agreed. "Poor Tanker. First he falls asleep in class...again, then he gets into a fight with Malcolm, and then he wrecks his car."  
  
"The guy probably got to him so much, he couldn't think straight," Sam muttered, glowering at the thought of Malcolm, and the way he had attacked Tanker's weakest point straight away.  
  
"It still confuses me," Sydney sighed. "I mean, we all know Tanker's a good driver, if a little too timid. And going before the light turns green is NOT the act of someone who is too timid."  
  
"Unlucky break," Sam shrugged.  
  
"But what about all the stuff he told us about wanting to kill everyone who got in his way?"  
  
"We all have those days," Sam replied.  
  
"Not to the point that we actually do it."  
  
"And you'd think Tanker would get the aggression out of his system, playing football," Amp added.  
  
Sam rolled his eyes.  
  
"So, what are you trying to say? You think there's a Mega-Virus out there somewhere that turned Tanker into the King of Road-Rage?"  
  
"It's possible," Sydney replied softly. "They've done weirder things."  
  
"I guess you're right," Sam admitted with a sigh. "You wanna start looking for that, Syd?"  
  
"Sure," she said, starting over to the computer and starting the virus- tracking function that the machine had been endowed with when Sam had been bestowed with the digital alter ego of Servo.  
  
Almost immediately, a little blue light began to flash on the screen, now set to a map of the city.  
  
"Well, we know there's a Mega-Virus somewhere in the city," she announced.  
  
"Great," Sam sighed. "Do you know exactly where it is yet?"  
  
"Almost...oh, I don't believe it..."  
  
"What, Syd?" Sam asked, frowning.  
  
"It's in the circuitry of Tanker's car. Or what WAS Tanker's car, at any rate."  
  
"Oh, man, do we go take care of it or not?" Sam asked the world in general with a sigh. "I mean, the car's already totalled. What's the point?"  
  
"We don't know what long-term effects this ugly has. If we leave it there, there's no telling what could happen."  
  
"Well...can't you tell things like that, Syd?"  
  
"Hey, I'm only one girl!" she protested. "It might take a while. And if Tank's car really is totalled, they might crush it before we can get rid of the virus."  
  
"Wouldn't THAT get rid of the virus?"  
  
"Just go beat it up, and then we'll decide," Amp suggested eagerly.  
  
Sam laughed helplessly.  
  
"Eh, alright. I've been kinda tense lately, anyway."  
  
"Oh...that isn't good," Sydney announced, grimacing at the information she had just gleaned on the Mega-Virus Monster.  
  
"What isn't good?" Sam asked as he slipped the strap of his guitar over his head.  
  
"Well...the virus is preparing to move to another car. So that means you have ten minutes to destroy it before it disappears, and we'll have to find out whose car it is now before someone else gets into an accident...and people get hurt this time."  
  
"Alright, I guess that decides it," Sam announced. "Everyone ready?"  
  
"Ready," Sydney confirmed.  
  
"Lets..."  
  
"SAMURIZE, GUYS!" they all shouted together as Sam hit the power-chord and disappeared in a flash of blue light.  
  
"Y'know," Amp said, shaking his head, "I said it once, and I'll say it again. Bad things never happen alone."  
  
"What do you mean, Amp?" Sydney asked with a frown as Servo began searching for the monster.  
  
"Well, first Tanker misses a lecture and has to catch up on his own, then Malcolm starts picking on him, and then we find out that Kilokhan sent a Mega-Virus into his car that made him get into a huge car accident. What're the odds, huh?"  
  
"Y-yeah," Sydney agreed hesitantly. "Some coincidence, isn't it?"  
  
Amp nodded emphatically, and then both turned their attention to the computer screen, where Servo had located the monster, and was proceeding to pummel it senseless.  
  
At least Amp did.  
  
The idle discussion of the situation with Amp had sparked something in Sydney's mind, and she found it difficult, to say the least, to concentrate on what was happening before her. Wasn't it odd that the Mega-Viruses they were made aware of seemed to come in only two varieties? There were those that brought the entire world to a halt, and those that interrupted the lives of Team Samurai, mostly Sam. When Sydney had thought about this at all, which hadn't tended to happen a lot, she would have said that it WAS simply a very cruel coincidence, or the fact that their being the Super- Human Samurai Syber-Squad somehow made them more susceptible to the attacks, even though neither Kilokhan, nor the mysterious person who designed and created the viruses, seemed to know their identities. After all, if Kilokhan had some way of knowing whom they as the Syber-Squad were, he would have sent viruses to eliminate them altogether, rather than to merely annoy them.  
  
Then another thought hit her with a suddenness that nearly made her dizzy.  
  
'What if the person creating the viruses is sending them after us all the time for some other reason? Someone we know...'  
  
"Syd! Sam's in trouble!" Amp's urgent shout cut through her thoughts.  
  
"What? Oh, no! Servo! I'm sending in the battle-shield."  
  
"Thanks," Servo's voice drifted back out from the computer as she called up the aforementioned program and sent it off. "But try to stay with us, okay, home base?"  
  
"Yeah," Amp agreed. "What's with the zone-out? That's usually MY department."  
  
"Sorry," she said sheepishly, resolving to shove all speculations firmly from her mind until the battle ended...and to keep all suspicions to herself until she could find out for certain.  
  
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Meanwhile, Servo was having difficulties of his own. As a well-placed kick from the creature's clawed, scaled foot connected roughly with his stomach, he gave a shout, more from surprise than from pain. How could something so big move so fast? Unfortunately for him, while he was formulating this thought as he struggled to his feet in a state of catlike readiness, the creature found time to whip around behind him and deliver a lightning-quick blow to the spine. Servo's sword and shield flew from his hand, and he ground his teeth in frustration as he went down.  
  
"A little help, guys?" he prompted, annoyed.  
  
"Right," Sydney answered immediately, already typing madly to call up the necessary program. Then she turned to Amp. "Who'll it be today?"  
  
"Well, let's see...you and Tanker got to go in last time, but the time before that, it was me and Tanker."  
  
"Tanker and I," Sydney corrected automatically.  
  
"No, I'm pretty sure you stayed behind that time."  
  
"No, no, I meant-"  
  
"Uh, guys? Discuss grammar later!" Servo pleaded as he sailed backward and into a nearby glowing tower.  
  
Amp and Sydney exchanged sheepish glances as the tower was demolished beneath the weight of the flying red spandex.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Then Sydney shook her head.  
  
"Why don't we both just go in?"  
  
"That's so crazy, it just might work!" Amp exclaimed.  
  
"Y'know what other crazy idea would work really well?" Servo's voice drifted from the monitor. "If you did it right now!"  
  
Amp made a placating gesture that, ironically enough, Sam had no way of seeing.  
  
"Okay, Sam, okay!"  
  
"Ready, Amp?" Sydney asked.  
  
"I was born ready!"  
  
Seconds later, two more flashes of blue light flew through the air and disappeared into the computer.  
  
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"Whoo! I'll bet that if this guy had breath, it'd be bad," Amp remarked, gesturing toward the virus with a well-placed beam of light.  
  
Sydney nodded uncertainly.  
  
"Right, Amp."  
  
"Great timing, you guys," Servo groused. "It was a nice touch, the way you left it until the last possible second."  
  
"Geez, forgive and forget, would you, Servo?" Amp requested, rolling his eyes beneath his visor.  
  
"Oh, alright," Servo grumbled. "Buy me a little time while I charge up to use the grid-power, would you?"  
  
"You got it, boss," Sydney agreed with a snappy salute, hitting a key and sending off a beam of light.  
  
The creature growled as the beam struck it on what appeared to be its shoulder, apparently not approving of this treatment. It prepared to retaliate, but hesitated a second too long.  
  
"Grid power!" Servo shouted as a mass of energy shot out of his hand, clenched into a fist, and bisected the monster, which glowed a fierce, angry red for an instant, and then dissipated into mist.  
  
"Hmm..." Amp mused aloud as the three started the journey back to Sam's computer. "I guess band practice is cancelled for tonight."  
  
"Oh, that's right!" Sam exclaimed. "I wonder if Tanker'll be allowed out tonight after this..."  
  
"I wouldn't bet on it," Sydney said emphatically.  
  
"Yeah, you're probably right. I wonder if his folks would let me drop by and see how he's doing, then."  
  
"Can't hurt to try," Amp shrugged as the three teens rematerialized in Sam's room again.  
  
Sam nodded, then set his guitar down.  
  
"I think I will."  
  
"Yeah, I've gotta take off, too," Amp said, starting for the stairs.  
  
Sydney blinked. Well, there went that idea of spending the evening here. To be sure, Sam probably wouldn't mind her staying behind, but he'd probably ask questions about why. With a heroically concealed reluctance, she followed Amp and Sam from the basement.  
  
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Malcolm smirked to himself as the sound of the lock on the front door clicking open, followed by slow, wearied footsteps reached him in the living room. He wondered briefly if she'd just been to bail Tanker out of prison, then immediately dismissed this. That was impossible, unfortunately, as the legal system didn't tend to hold people of their age group for more than an evening, particularly for first-time traffic violations.  
  
"Rough day?" he called mildly, infusing as much sympathy into his tone as possible as she left the front entry and made a beeline for the stairs.  
  
At his question, she stopped short and turned to stare at him in bewilderment.  
  
"I thought I was supposed to leave you alone."  
  
"Oh, I was just in a bad mood earlier," he assured her smoothly. It felt a little phoney, to be sure, and he wasn't sure if she would be fooled or not, but he was dying to know what mess Tanker had gotten himself into. This was, after all, the moment he'd been waiting for since he sent off his Mega-Virus. "Don't take it too seriously."  
  
She frowned, leaning against the bottom of the stair railing and watching him closely.  
  
"Okay..."  
  
"Now," he said briskly, patting the couch cushion next to him, "come sit and tell me what's wrong."  
  
Her frown deepened. She didn't particularly trust him at the best of times, and really, after the last time they had spoken, the last thing she wanted to do was tell him about her problems. Nonetheless, she pushed off from the banister and started toward the sofa. 'In the interest of not starting another argument,' she told herself, ignoring the odd relief that swept through her as it became clear that he seemed to have forgotten their earlier argument.  
  
"Tanker got into a really huge car crash today," she finally announced, turning and looking squarely at him, waiting for the humorous glint in his eye to turn into malicious laughter.  
  
It didn't, however. Instead, it faded completely as he grew slightly pale. An accident? That was rather unexpected. The plan had been for Tanker to be pulled over for reckless driving, not to be in actual danger.  
  
To be sure, if Malcolm had stopped to think about his plot for a moment, he would have easily admitted that he had expected SOMEONE to be hurt throughout the course of it. Somehow, though, he hadn't quite expected it to be someone that he knew. Even if that someone was Tanker, the thought that the young man might be injured was hardly pleasant, particularly with one of that same young man's best friends sitting beside him, face ashen and hands twisted together until the knuckles were white.  
  
"He...was he hurt?" he asked slowly, a hard little knot beginning to form in his stomach.  
  
"No, he's fine, aside from some bumps and bruises. He was really, really lucky. He's just shaken up, because he knows that he probably could have gotten killed. So are Sam and Amp and I. It's not every day one of your best friends totals his car. The other car was totalled, too."  
  
His jaw tightened and he looked away, suddenly angry that he had wasted even a moment of worry on Tanker...and even more so, that the thought that she could have very easily been in the car when it crashed had him still feeling slightly sick and very nearly regretting his actions. What was it to him if Tanker put Collins and all his little pals in the hospital? Absolutely nothing. Still, he couldn't quite drive away the lingering relief that she was safe. And Tanker, he added grudgingly.  
  
"Hmph. Maybe the idiot should have his license suspended before he DOES hurt someone next time."  
  
"It wasn't his fault!" she shot back without thinking, then inwardly flinching as his eyebrows shot straight up.  
  
"Oh? How so?"  
  
"I...I don't know. I just know that he's a good driver, and he wouldn't be deliberately reckless." This seemed a safe answer. After all, it would hardly do to coolly inform Malcolm that Tanker's car accident had been the fault of the little monster living inside his car.  
  
"Ah. Of course. None of your friends can ever do anything wrong. I'll bet the other party was at fault, whatever the police report may say. After all, heaven forbid that anything should be St. Tanker's fault."  
  
"I didn't say that!"  
  
"Not in those words."  
  
"I didn't say it at all!" she insisted furiously. "God! What is your problem? You asked me what was wrong, remember?"  
  
"And I suppose this is the price I pay for being lured into conversation," he agreed lazily.  
  
For a moment, she simply stared at him, shocked that even Malcolm could be so arrogant.  
  
Meanwhile, he was taking in the over-bright eyes and the brilliant flush that had come over her previously too-pale face, and wondering if she was going to cry again. And to think that he had considered her one of the more rational females in his acquaintance!  
  
Still, he knew that the day had been trying for him, and if hers had been anywhere near as bad, this was probably the last thing she needed. He sighed, a niggling sense of guilt forming in the back of his mind.  
  
"Sydney..."  
  
He got no further, however, as the next instant, he found himself choking around a mouthful of one of the dusty old throw pillows that decorated his sofa when he got around to putting them there, that had just hit him squarely in the face.  
  
Recovering his bearings just in time to hear the slam of the spare room door from upstairs, he set aside the slightly dampish pillow and folded his arms, trying and failing utterly to look angry. Then he shook his head. Who would have thought it would be so much fun to see her drop that constant act of calm cheerfulness and express her annoyance?  
  
'If she isn't careful,' he reflected with a smug smirk, 'messing with her emotional equilibrium is going to become one of my new favourite pastimes.'  
  
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End Notes: Hee! This one was fun! I really need to do an Amp-centric 'fic some day, though. Despite the work that the show did with it, he's a hard character to give a serious side. Not only that, he's a fun character to write, simply because he veers between serious and silly so wildly.  
  
Anyway, again, thanks for reading! ^_^ 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7  
  
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Notes: Uh-oh! She's back again! ^_^  
  
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If the universe had worked the way Sydney would have preferred it to, she likely would have remained too angry to think coherently for the rest of the evening, and long into the night. However, this was not the way that it did work out, due to that damned logical nature again, not allowing for ever-so-satisfying severe, long-lasting anger. And so, fifteen minutes after she whacked Malcolm soundly upside the head with a throw pillow - that HAD been fun, she reflected with a soft laugh, particularly his bewildered little squeak - and stormed upstairs, she began to feel a little guilty over her overreaction, and more than a little silly.  
  
'Geez...he probably already thinks I'm insane. If I do this again, he's going to have me committed. What the heck is wrong with me lately?'  
  
She sighed, halting in the ever-entertaining act of pacing, and dropped wearily to the bed. Yes, she had made an idiot of herself for the second time that day, and there was no getting around it. The question remained to be pondered, though: should she go and apologize to him for overreacting and using his furniture as a projectile? She'd feel better for it; that was certain. However, she somehow didn't think he would take it very gracefully. He'd either snarl at her to go away, or he'd rub her nose in the fact that she'd acted like some hysterical nut job.  
  
She didn't know which would be worse.  
  
All in all, then, apologizing was out.  
  
So, what was she supposed to do until a decent hour to go to bed - which 7:00 definitely was NOT?  
  
"Great...where did I put that book?" she muttered, vaguely annoyed, sifting through the various and sundry other book in her book bag. "Oh...right," she sighed. "I left it at Sam's."  
  
Snatching a second-choice book from her bag, she settled comfortably against the pillows propped up against the wall, and began flipping absently through it. However, after an hour, fifty pages and nearly three hundred years of the Capitian reign in the West Frankish kingdom in the early Medieval Period later, none of which her brain had absorbed, she tossed it onto the dark fabric of the blanket covering the bed, and let her mind wander.  
  
Various idle thoughts drifted through her mind, about the homework that she had earlier finished at Sam's, and whether or not she should go back and check over it, deciding ultimately that she shouldn't, whether or not Amp would still be playing with his bubble tube tomorrow, whether or not Tanker would remember to bring back her notes...whether or not Tanker would be in school tomorrow at all.  
  
'I know he said he wasn't actually hurt, but he looked pretty scraped up, and he's probably really shaken. I know I wouldn't be in school the next day if it was me,' she concluded recklessly, ignoring the fact that this was about as far from the truth as could be for the girl who often stated proudly that she hadn't missed a day since pre-school at the age of three.  
  
From here, her mind wandered back to the Mega-Virus they had fought that afternoon, taking her gradually back onto the train of thought that had been earlier abandoned in the interest of paying attention to the battle.  
  
'Maybe...maybe we DO know the person making the viruses. But who could it be? I can't think of anyone who actually wants us ALL dead. I can think of a few people who want Sam dead...and most of Hoffman High's football team - and all the school's football enthusiasts - would probably take the opportunity to get rid of Tanker...and I know Olga Carpucci would probably cackle with glee if I suddenly disappeared. But who hates Amp? Besides Malcolm, of course, but he hates...everyone. Oh, God...'  
  
She drew in a deep breath as the thought hit her with a nearly physical impact. Then she put a hand to her head and laughed shakily. No, that was impossible. Sure, he was antisocial, but he wouldn't actually try to HURT anyone, would he? And innocents? No. It was crazy, she reflected, shaking her head firmly.  
  
Then why the hell did it make so bloody much sense?  
  
And more than that, why did it hit her so hard, in a way that had nothing to do with fear for her own safety, to think that he was capable of doing the things the virus had done? Water supply turned to hydrochloric acid, worldwide food shortage, time rendered invalid all over the world, banks crashing everywhere - and she recalled, suddenly, the image of him grinning wickedly at her as he announced exactly what she was to do for her twenty dollars. She sighed. It had been simply by luck that no one at home had asked her exactly what the 'hula-girl' getup was for...although, truth be told, it had been kind of fun. She had almost understood the appeal that Amp saw in dressing up nearly everyday. Really, it had been hilarious, all the odd looks she had received that day - from the jockstrap-clad soccer team, among others, in the ultimate show of irony.  
  
Come to think of it, this recent conclusion made a heck of a lot of sense! So much sense, in fact, that Sydney was suddenly struck by disbelief that none of them had ever thought of it before. The viruses ALWAYS seemed to come when Malcolm was the angriest with the world in general - as today - and often seemed only to affect Sam, Tanker, Amp, or her. Not only that, he always seemed to come out on top, at least at first, no matter how critical the situation around the rest of the world became.  
  
"I can't believe it...how could he even think of getting involved with something like that? Hasn't he at least got enough going on upstairs to realize that he's only going to get hurt in the end? Does he honestly think Kilokhan would spare him if...that IDIOT!"  
  
Suddenly furious, she climbed off the bed and started for the door, fully intent upon confronting him. Then, as the knob turned under her hand, resolve wavered, and then collapsed entirely.  
  
"Maybe for the best," she sighed, starting back to the bed. "I don't imagine he'd take kindly to anyone telling him he's been an idiot, and I sure don't want to put Sam on the wrong end of a Kilokhan who knows that he's Servo."  
  
And then, of course, she told herself less than convincingly, there was a very good chance that Malcolm wasn't the one creating the viruses. After all, there was the matter of his reaction to finding out that Tanker had been in an accident. Surely, if he had sent a virus like that into Tanker's car, he would have expected that.  
  
Rather emptily comforted by this, Sydney picked up her book and pretended to read again.  
  
--------------------------------------------  
  
"So, what's the post, Tank?" Sam asked the next morning, brow furrowed in concern as he leaned slightly closer to his friend over the cafeteria table.  
  
"Grounded for a month," the taller boy replied with a sigh. "I'm pretty damn lucky. It could've been a year. My folks weren't that mad, though. Just disappointed."  
  
"Ooh..." Sam, Sydney, and Amp chorused together, wincing in sympathy. All three of them had been on the receiving end of the 'we're not angry, we're just disappointed' speech, and knew how it could leave a person doubting their own self-worth for weeks to come.  
  
"We figured out what made you go wacko, though...not that it'll help now," Sam continued.  
  
Tanker frowned, leaning forward over the table and lowering his voice.  
  
"What do you mean, what made me go wacko?"  
  
"It was a Mega-Virus Monster," Sydney informed him. "In the circuitry of your car."  
  
Tanker blinked several times, sighed again, and then slammed his fist into the tabletop.  
  
"Why the hell do these things always come after us? It's like Kilokhan's got some grudge with us."  
  
"If he only knew," Amp put in, laughing weakly.  
  
Sam rubbed his eyes.  
  
"Yeah, no kidding. It's bad enough now. Hell...can you imagine what would happen if he figured out who we are?"  
  
"Y-yeah. I don't think we even want to imagine," Sydney agreed uncomfortably as the bell sounded in a cheerfully annoying peal, and sent students skittering off to class.  
  
Now was definitely not the time to let the guys in on her theory. Not with what had just happened to Tanker. Either they'd all think she was insane and had it in for Malcolm - not that they'd mind; they'd probably think it was hilarious - or they'd agree that it was likely. From there, they would go approach him immediately, hot with anger over his putting innocent people in danger JUST to get at Tanker. She was pretty sure that, once they'd decided that he was guilty, they wouldn't listen to her entreaties to wait until she could find evidence...and then there would be the problem of explaining to them HOW she would go about getting that evidence, and...just, no.  
  
After spending the better parts of the previous night turning the situation over and over in her mind, Sydney had finally admitted to herself that there was a chance that Malcolm was the creator of these viruses - a damn good chance - and not much of a chance that he wasn't. However, she had reflected, the thought offering scant comfort, that it wouldn't do to jump to conclusions, and that the matter must be investigated. This, of course, would have to wait for one of the precious few times that her reluctant host wasn't in the house.  
  
------------------------------------------  
  
And it seemed that this was not going to come easily to her. More than once in the days that followed, she wondered if he ever left the house besides for the purpose of attending school...sometimes, she amended with a grin, recalling all the free periods that he seemed to mysteriously have. Oddly enough, despite the fact that he'd been caught - or rather, had confessed to - stealing the principal's hall passes, he was still cutting classes with impunity.  
  
At any rate, when, after nearly a week, no opportunity for exploration of the house in a search for tangible, concrete evidence that he was working with Kilokhan, with no more viruses showing up to cause random trouble, gleaning evidence and revealing her theory to Sam and the others began to seem less important. And anyway, Sydney deliberately did NOT say to herself, the last thing she honestly wanted was to find out beyond the shadow of a doubt that she had been right. As of now, there was still a chance that she had been completely wrong, and something in her wanted to keep it that way.  
  
Very, very badly.  
  
After all, what high school student ever wants to believe that her peers are quite literally capable of murder?  
  
And so it was that she fell almost too easily into the routine that they were quickly establishing.  
  
Part of the routine was, over the days, spending more time together. Gradually, the goal of both to avoid one another at all cost was seeming to fall by the wayside to the point that when one saw the other entering the room, they could remain where they were and simply greet the other with a smile. From here, the other would return the smile and the greeting, and they would pass several minutes in relatively civil conversation without realizing exactly how many minutes had passed.  
  
For, of course, Malcolm told himself several times, it would have been unendingly uncomfortable to share a residence with someone that he was not on at least halfway civil speaking terms with. This was absolutely his only reason for speaking to her at all. Really.  
  
Soon, snippets of civil conversation thrown out when they happened to pass in the hallway at school or at his house turned to sharing meals, which they hadn't done since the first night she'd stayed there, as soon after that had occurred that argument. Or rather, those two arguments. Three arguments.  
  
And from here, it hadn't seemed at all strange for them to spend the occasional evening together, not necessarily speaking, but working on their respective homework assignments together - meaning 'in the same room' - and talking if anything came up that warranted talking about.  
  
Sydney reflected sadly more than once that this didn't happen very often, and that he really did seem to have little interest in being friends.  
  
Malcolm, meanwhile, reflected nervously more than once that he never would have imagined that he would have this much to say to anyone, let alone one of Collins' little posse, and that he'd better put a stop to this before it became dangerous.  
  
However, he made no effort to do so, and thus they continued along this path.  
  
------------------------------------------  
  
"Hmph...you call that drawing?" Malcolm asked mockingly, leaning over slightly from his end of the sofa to peek into her notebook one evening a week and a half later as the two sat in what had previously been a comfortable silence in the living-room lit softly by the glow of a rather ancient-looking floor lamp and two side-table lamps on either side of the sofa.  
  
She looked up, startled, and tried to glare at him, but failed utterly as a smile won out.  
  
"I never claimed to be an artist," she replied mildly, gazing sorrowfully down at the cartoonish little bunnies and frogs that bounced their way around the edges of the pages of neatly written notes.  
  
"Good, because I'd hate to disillusion you," he smirked.  
  
"You would?" she asked, raising an eyebrow dubiously.  
  
He pondered this for a moment.  
  
"No."  
  
"That's what I thought," she laughed, shaking her head helplessly. Then she caught a glimpse of the large sketchbook open on his lap. "What are you working on?"  
  
Malcolm glared at her, already out of his previous comparatively light- hearted and talkative mood. He hastily flipped his sketchbook shut.  
  
"Didn't you used to be the quiet type?"  
  
"Never!"  
  
"I'm beginning to catch on," he murmured under his breath before reluctantly answering her question. "I'm taking an art class. We don't meet very often - only once every two weeks. But our instructor wants a piece from all of us for a local gallery. I'm trying to decide what to do for that."  
  
"Wow! Is the class through the school?"  
  
"OUR school?" he snorted incredulously. "The faculty wouldn't know art if it came up and bit them on the ass."  
  
She giggled, trying to stave off a mental image of Principal Pratchert leaping around and howling in pain, with the Venus de Milo attached to his posterior by the teeth.  
  
"You're a perfect product of that," he continued, snickering and casting a meaningful glance at her notebook.  
  
"They're in-class doodles!" she exclaimed. "Economics is a little boring."  
  
"Doodling in class," he sighed, shaking his head in mock-disapproval. "What next? No wonder you're only running a B in that class."  
  
"Actually, that isn't the class," she said, turning away with a tiny sigh. Of course it wasn't such an issue anymore, that one B, but it still rankled that her perfect average was shot to Hell, and over a class like THAT...  
  
His voice broke into her thoughts abruptly.  
  
"What class was it, then?"  
  
"Something really stupid," she replied with a sheepish blush. "History."  
  
"How is that stupid, exactly?"  
  
"Well, it's all memorization, and I'm usually good at that, so you'd THINK that-"  
  
"Just be thankful it isn't an art class," he smirked. "Then you'd be doing a lot worse than a 'B.'"  
  
"Hey, if YOU'RE so fantastic, why don't you teach me some of the finer points?" she demanded, only partially joking.  
  
"I think you might be beyond help," he informed her sadly.  
  
"Oh, shut up!" she barked, hurling a ball of paper procured from the back of her notebook at him. "Hey, I know: let's see you do a push-up, and THEN we'll see who's got problems!"  
  
"I think you've got me confused with Amp."  
  
"So, you DIDN'T buy your way to a passing grade on the physical fitness tests," she mused, dropping her eyes and frowning to hide her mirth. "I guess I owe Sam five dollars."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"But, seriously. How much did you have to pay Mr. Patterson?"  
  
"I didn't!" he exclaimed, outraged.  
  
"Sure, you didn't," she giggled.  
  
"I didn't!"  
  
"Okay, okay, I believe you," she assured him, her expression clearly stating that she didn't.  
  
He glared ferociously at her, all the more ferociously for the knowledge that she wasn't at all intimidated.  
  
"I'll bet I scored higher on my PE test than you," he finally said airily.  
  
"Oh! Than a girl! You must be so proud," she exclaimed sarcastically. "And I'll bet you didn't. I'll bet Sam's little sister could pin you in under ten seconds."  
  
"Perhaps," he smirked. "But YOU sure as hell couldn't."  
  
"Yeah, right. Try me," she invited, trying for menace but failing completely, he reflected, with the random curls escaping her loose ponytail and falling around her face as she bounced to her feet, the effect simply cute and impish.  
  
"Try you," he repeated slowly, lifting one eyebrow questioningly. "I think not. I'm not going to wrestle you in the middle of my living room."  
  
"Because you know you'd lose," she scoffed.  
  
"Not at all," he assured her smoothly. "It's for your safety."  
  
"Sure it is," she snickered, wondering at the strangeness of this entire conversation. "It's very easy to SAY that when we both know that any injuries sustained would be yours."  
  
"Fine," he shot back huffily, and the next moment, he pushed himself off of the couch and lunged toward her.  
  
Neither of the two was ever certain exactly what happened after that.  
  
As he approached, fist raised, something flashed a dull red at the back of her mind, the scene far too familiar, and with a startled gasp, she caught his wrist with one hand and punched him sharply and squarely in the stomach with her other fist before he could even think about dodging.  
  
With a shout, he dropped to his knees, stunned, and glared up at her, quite unable to speak, all the wind knocked out of him.  
  
"S-sorry," she groaned, grabbing his arm and hauling him to his feet.  
  
"What was that?" he demanded amid gasps for air.  
  
"You startled me," she replied lamely, guiding him to a chair.  
  
"Yeah; you startled me, too," he grumbled, still clutching his stomach.  
  
"Sorry. Are you okay?"  
  
He grimaced.  
  
"Fine."  
  
She laughed softly, and he turned to glare at her.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, I guess this is the last time you'll ever try to wrestle me."  
  
He smiled wryly.  
  
"I'll just be prepared next time."  
  
"It probably won't be an issue again," she said, climbing to her feet and gathering her books together.  
  
"Hmph," he replied eloquently, flipping through his sketchbook.  
  
"Well...goodnight," she called reluctantly, starting up the stairs.  
  
"Whatever," he called back, not looking up.  
  
With a sigh, she continued up to the guest room, watched quite unbeknownst to her by the young man in the living room, a tiny smile playing about the corners of his mouth as he absently rubbed the bruise he would undoubtedly have before long.  
  
Then, as she disappeared from view, he flipped absently through his book to the sketch he had begun several days ago in the cafeteria, and began drawing. A decent likeness, if he did say so himself, and something new and interesting to try.  
  
Suddenly, he caught himself and flipped defiantly to another page, and set about putting the final touches on a sketch of Jennifer, wrapped in a towel, reclining on a lounge chair, the towel just beginning to slip away.  
  
From this moment forward, there was no way in Hell would he let that annoying - and erratically violent - little geek have a second more of his thoughts than was necessary.  
  
Really.  
  
Ever.  
  
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End Notes: Keehee! Well, it's getting 'shippery, folks! And I do believe I sense some plot on the horizon! ^_^ Anyway, thanks again to anyone who's reading this, and I hope to have Chapter 8 out soon - like, before next Christmas. ^_^; 


	8. Chapter 8: An Interlude of Silliness

Chapter 8 - Seriousness Takes a Holiday  
  
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Notes: Well, I think I can safely call this 'The Silly Chapter.' But, hey. It's good reading anyway. Really! It is! PLEASE read it? [Makes big hopeful eyes]  
  
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"C'mon, Tanker, I don't think she's here. We should probably just go," Amp said the next evening as the other boy's fifth ringing of the doorbell of the Forester home produced no results.  
  
"Library again?" Tanker groaned.  
  
"She wasn't there twenty minutes ago," Amp replied with a shrug. "There's probably no point."  
  
"Yeah," Tanker agreed. "Think Sam's back from Jennifer's yet?"  
  
Amp laughed.  
  
"Not if I know him like I think I do."  
  
Tanker rolled his eyes as the two started down the walk.  
  
"No kidding. Y'know, he said a while back that he was gonna start making more time for us; sure hasn't happened yet."  
  
"I know, Tanker, but - hey!"  
  
"But...?" Tanker prompted, blinking in surprise as Amp strode quickly back up the front walk of the grey two-story.  
  
---------------------------------  
  
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"Hey!"  
  
Sydney gawped in horror at the two young men headed toward her, acutely aware of the duffel bag slung over her shoulder, still out of their sight, as it was hidden by the corner that she was in the process of rounding, but which would undoubtedly be the source of a ton of unwanted questions if seen.  
  
"Oh, NO!"  
  
Thinking quickly, she glanced about, and then decisively hoisted the large blue nylon bag over the tall fence into the neighbours' yard. 'I'm sure Mrs. Patterson won't mind,' she thought dubiously. 'Of all the times for them to show up! Of course they HAVE to catch the one time this week that I went home for stuff.'  
  
Still, making a concentrated effort to appear delighted to see them, she started towards Amp.  
  
"Hi, guys!"  
  
"Hey, kid," Tanker greeted warmly. "How's the library?"  
  
"Great, great," she replied brightly, glancing surreptitiously at the fence, where it appeared that Mrs. Patterson's prized German Shepherd had just happened upon her bag, and was sniffing at it curiously. 'No, Kip, go away! Shampoo isn't something you want to eat! Go away! BAD huge doggie that could tear out my throat if he wanted to!'  
  
Tanker and Amp exchanged wary glances.  
  
"So, how come you weren't at the library when we were there a few minutes ago?" Tanker demanded.  
  
"Well, I'd probably just left. I've been here for the last half hour or so," she explained, hoping desperately that they might cease this barrage of questions.  
  
"So, why didn't you answer the door?"  
  
"Oh! Have you been ringing the bell?" she asked innocently. 'It'll be a miracle if they buy this...'  
  
"Yeah!" Tanker replied, rolling his eyes. "Only for the last half hour!"  
  
"Anyway, Syd," Amp spoke up, "where are you headed?"  
  
"Er, nowhere, really," Sydney replied uncomfortably. "I thought I'd go pay Grandma a visit."  
  
"Doesn't your grandma live in Detroit?" Tanker asked suspiciously.  
  
"Not that grandma," she replied immediately. "Grandma Campbell."  
  
"The one who lives in Scotland?" Amp asked, scratching his head.  
  
"Yeah!" she replied cheerfully. "I mean, no! No, she moved here recently. Didn't I tell you?"  
  
Both boys shook their heads, exchanging wary glances.  
  
"Yeah, she thought she'd give sunny ol' North Valley a try," she laughed far too brightly. "So, I'm going over there to say hi."  
  
"Want some company?" Amp asked immediately, looking strangely at Tanker as he started gesturing frantically 'no.'  
  
Sydney giggled.  
  
"Yeah, Amp, Tanker's met Granny Campbell, and...well, let's just say he didn't like her much."  
  
Amp looked questioningly at the miserably blushing Tanker.  
  
"What happened? Did she bite you with her angry-teeth? I hate when they do that..."  
  
"Uh, no," Tanker replied, growing redder.  
  
"She grabbed a feel, didn't she?" Amp asked seriously. "I remember when Sam's grandma did that to me..."  
  
Sydney burst into a peal of laughter at Tanker's furious expression.  
  
"No, Amp, she didn't grab a feel. She's said often that Grandpa's all the man she'll ever need, like I wanted to know that. But she did tell Tanker that she expected me to give her great-grandchildren by the age of eighteen, and she liked the look of him for a father for them."  
  
Amp stared incredulously from one to the other several times, and then collapsed to the ground in helpless laughter.  
  
"Shut up," Tanker muttered, still a dull red.  
  
"Anyway, guys, I'll give Granny your regards," Sydney told them both cheerfully, offering Amp a hand up.  
  
"Sure. Tell her I said hi," Tanker requested, trying to drag Amp down the sidewalk. "Come ON, Amp!"  
  
"I guess you guys only have two more years. You'd better get working on the grandchildren thing, eh?" Amp gasped, wiping away tears of mirth.  
  
At this, both of his friends wheeled on him furiously.  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
"Fine, fine," Amp grinned. "See you tomorrow, Syd."  
  
"Bye, guys," she called, shaking her head as they started away. "I hope neither of them says anything to Mom about Granny Campbell moving here. I'd hate to have to talk myself out of such a blatant lie..."  
  
With this musing, she started to the gate leading into the Pattersons' back yard. Taking a deep breath and reflecting that if anything went wrong, she'd lived a full life, she lifted the latch.  
  
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Twenty minutes later, minutes that Sydney was certain had each taken at least a week off of her life, the lightly drool-damp duffel back was recovered, and she was trudging, scraped, dirty, and covered in dog hair from her fight with a massive German Shepherd, up the walk to the front door of Malcolm's house.  
  
As she reached the door, she slid the key into the lock, praising the powers that be that Kip was, when all was said and done, just a puppy. A severely overgrown puppy that had proved himself able to take her to the ground in two seconds flat - and then had made off with her hat - but a puppy nonetheless.  
  
"Hopefully, Malcolm's still mad enough at me for slugging him that he won't ask me why I'm bleeding in weird places and covered with dog-hair," she mused, trying vainly to brush away some of the black and brown hairs, very conspicuous against her beige sweater. "And hopefully he's not too mad to lend me some antiseptic. Stupid dog..."  
  
Then, as it occurred to her that her words had been the only sound in a now completely silent house, she came to a halt and let her bag drop unheeded to the floor.  
  
Kicking it against a wall, she listened very carefully for some of the usual signs of life: a CD - usually White Zombie, a tap running, or the television going.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Quickening her pace, she peeked quickly into each of the rooms.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Had it finally happened? Was he actually out of the house? Could this finally be her chance? It certainly looked good.  
  
"I don't believe it," she sighed. "Now I have no idea where to start."  
  
'Uh...maybe his room?' a little voice in the back of her mind suggested sarcastically.  
  
"Uh...that might not be such a good idea," she told it, blushing slightly.  
  
'Oh, come on!' it exclaimed, exasperated. "That's probably where he keeps his computer. And Kilokhan DOES live in a computer, you know."  
  
"I hate you," she muttered to her logical side, starting up the stairs. "Now, which door was it again?"  
  
'Second door from the stairs, left side of the hall,' the voice reminded her mildly.  
  
"Thanks," she grinned, turning the doorknob and opening the door slowly and silently, cringing in anticipation of him being there, after all, and being furious at this invasion of his privacy.  
  
The room, however, was clearly deserted, and so she stepped quickly inside and closed the door, gazing curiously about her.  
  
"Hmm...I coulda guessed it," she laughed, taking in the tangle of black sheets and quilt on the double bed, and the drawings papering the neutrally painted walls, with the occasional heavy metal or anime poster breaking the stream of spiky-looking science fiction type creatures. "These look kind of familiar," she noted, looking again at the creatures. "Oh, boy..."  
  
This evidence in hand, any other person might have gotten out right away. However, this was not any other person. This particular person had always made a big deal about assuming nothing until it was completely proven, and there was still a great deal of reluctance in the back of her mind to have to admit once and for all that Malcolm was the maker of the mega-virus monsters, and thus Kilokhan's business partner.  
  
'Hey, go look under his bed,' the voice in the back of her mind cackled.  
  
"Um...why? Shouldn't I just look for the computer? I doubt it's under his bed."  
  
'No, but maybe you can find one of his sketchbooks!'  
  
"Hey, that's a good idea! There might be...I don't know...incriminating drawings in there!"  
  
'That's pretty weak,' the voice snorted. 'I think you just want to satisfy some morbid curiosity.'  
  
"You shut up!"  
  
'Fine,' it agreed mildly. 'But don't expect me to come back to get you out of a jam.'  
  
And so the voice fell silent, or rather, Sydney stopped formulating replies for it, and instead dropped to her knees next to the bed and peered under.  
  
"No sketchbook," she noted sadly.  
  
'That's because the sketchbook is sitting on his dresser,' the voice piped back up.  
  
"Hey!" Sydney exclaimed. "I thought you were leaving!"  
  
'I am you. You obviously noticed the sketchbook on the way in, but suppressed that knowledge as a result of your guilt at being so nosy. And since I'm a representation of your logical mind, I noticed it, and was able to impart the information to you.'  
  
"Wow...I'm a bad psychologist?"  
  
'I guess so,' it replied absently. 'Now, go look at the sketchbook! I'm curious, too!'  
  
"I thought you WERE me."  
  
'Shut up and look at the sketchbook!'  
  
"I don't know...I don't think he'd like this."  
  
'Oh, sure. But snooping around the rest of his room won't bother him at all. Come on! What he doesn't know, won't hurt him.'  
  
"Well...maybe just a quick peek."  
  
'Atta-girl, Syd! I knew you could do it!'  
  
With a shrug, she picked up the book and flipped it open. She wasn't entirely sure what she expected to find, but the first four pages, covered with intricately detailed science-fiction-esque creatures, similar to the ones on the wall, didn't strike her as anything out of the ordinary, considering with whom she was dealing. Another eight pages of the same, interspersed with violent, graphic, but incredibly well-done, and oddly amusing, drawings of Sam or Tanker with their heads impaled on pikes, saying ridiculously silly things, and she was beginning to wonder what exactly he had been so secretive about. Come to think of it, there was nothing in here that he hadn't shown her willingly, even before this situation.  
  
But the next page made her freeze in shock, and she took a moment to catch her breath.  
  
"Wow..."  
  
It was Jennifer.  
  
Not a drawing of Jennifer, it WAS Jennifer. Or nearly, anyway. He had literally captured every aspect of her, from the upright, confident, coquettish posture, to the way that that one tendril of hair fell into her eye despite her greatest efforts to keep it out, to the warm, friendly, smile, as though extending a hand of fellowship to all the world. Sydney could have sworn that the picture would begin to move, begin to speak, that her tinkling, musical laugh would ring through the silent room any second. It was nearly eerie. Hurriedly, she flipped the page...  
  
...and blushed a bright crimson at the image of Jennifer emerging, nude, from the foamed-tipped waves of the sea, as Aphrodite had in the myth, her hair sweeping over her shoulders, not quite reaching the tops of her full, perfectly-shaped breasts. This time, her expression was one of guarded invitation, as though entreating men to just TRY to find out what secrets lay behind that placid smile. It was a smile that men would die for...heck, even some women that she knew!  
  
"These are amazing! I...I never knew he cared THIS much for her!"  
  
Although pictures of Jennifer very obviously had absolutely nothing to do with the gathering of evidence, she found herself quite unable to put the book down. She flipped through page after page of that same cheerleader, drawn in various poses, in the roles of heroines down through the ages, from antiquity to recent history. One thing remained constant, though; in each drawing, she was gazing straight ahead, never faltering. Just like Jennifer's gaze.  
  
"Oh, well. So, now I know Jennifer's got a stalker. I knew that before," she murmured with a slightly forced laugh, tossing the sketchbook to the ground, not bothering to look at the page it fell open to, although she should doubtlessly have found it very interesting, had she bothered...  
  
As she straightened up again, the closet door caught her eye.  
  
'Oh, snooping in the poor boy's closet now, are you?' the voice snorted.  
  
"You never know. If it's a big closet, he could keep a computer in there..."  
  
'Now, THAT'S weak, Forester. Just get out of here now.'  
  
"What happened to your going away?"  
  
'Just trying to help,' it said mildly, falling silent.  
  
She crept toward the closet, wondering briefly if ominous music was going to start growing louder as she approached, and in this wondering, completely missed the sound of the door opening behind her.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Malcolm's hand froze over the doorknob of his bedroom as he heard a faint noise from within.  
  
'What in the HELL? Oh, for the love of...she'd better not be!'  
  
Upon turning the knob and silently opening the door, he discovered that, in fact, she was. He frowned. What was she looking for in his closet, anyway? It wasn't ordinarily something that held a fascination for nosy girls with too much time on their hands. And then, of course, if she discovered Kilokhan... Thinking things not lawful to be uttered of his schoolmate's harmless curiosity, he started forward until he was directly behind her, and then put an effective end to her sleuthing career.  
  
"Looking for something?"  
  
"Ack!" she shrieked, whirling about. "Um...a pen!"  
  
"A pen?"  
  
"A pen," she confirmed. "I was...looking for an inking pen. I figured, you're an artist, you probably have one somewhere around here."  
  
"So, you...didn't just wait until I got home to ask for one?"  
  
"Um...well..."  
  
"Yes. 'Well.' You know, I DID ask you to stay away from my room."  
  
"U-um, I know," she said lamely. "Sorry."  
  
"Forget it," he grumbled. "Just...stay out of here, okay?"  
  
She nodded, and for a moment, looked as though she might say more. Then, with a minute shake of her head, she turned started toward the door.  
  
His glare followed her as she left, choosing to ignore the strangeness of this whole incident. When the door finally clicked shut, he flew to the large walk-in closet on the wall opposite the door. God help him - and her - if she had stumbled upon his little business partner, and Kilokhan had decided, as he was likely to, that he disliked her.  
  
"Greetings, Malcolm-thing," a familiar voice drawled, its tone infused with what Malcolm could have sworn was humour, had such a thing not been utterly absurd.  
  
"Good evening, Khan-thing," he replied dryly, deciding that he, for one, would not be the first to mention what he was uncomfortably certain the topic of conversation was going to stray to.  
  
"I assume that you will be in an efficient state of thinking this evening?"  
  
Efficient state of thinking, efficient state of-  
  
"A good mood?" Malcolm paraphrased, frowning as he sat down in front of the monitor.  
  
"Correct."  
  
"W-why would I be?" he asked nervously.  
  
"I heard voices in your...your...room of rest."  
  
"My bedroom?" the youth prompted, rolling his eyes.  
  
"Yes, that is the one. I heard a voice of a higher timbre than one would expect of a male meat-thing."  
  
"Uh...and?"  
  
"And it is a logical assumption that it belongs to a female meat-thing."  
  
"Okay..."  
  
"And from my experience with male meat-things, such a thing, a female meat- thing in your...your bedroom ought to have improved your...mood."  
  
"What?!" Malcolm sputtered. The damn program WAS implying things! "You're insane!"  
  
"Computer programs cannot suffer deficiencies of the brain for the simple reason that they do not have them-"  
  
"I know, you half-wit!" he interrupted. "It's the same reason that Tanker couldn't suffer a deficiency of the brain! I mean that you're wrong. I loathe and despise her more than I can say. Honestly, the little bitch has caused me nothing but trouble for the last two weeks."  
  
"Why is it, meat-thing, that you have not introduced me to your houseguest?" Kilokhan asked almost reproachfully. "Were it possible, I should almost feel affronted."  
  
"Deal with it," Malcolm said severely, fighting back discomfort at what sort of rash reaction she might have to this, and what response this might prompt from Kilokhan. Certainly, she wouldn't get out alive  
  
"Oh, very well," Kilokhan agreed. "Now, have you a new virus for me? I have been rather bored since your last one."  
  
"I've been busy," the young man shot back defensively. "And no, I don't have a new virus for you."  
  
"Ah. Then we shall simply have to work to improve an old design."  
  
"Maybe later."  
  
An annoyed growl emanated from the computer screen, and the next second, Malcolm gave a yelp of pain and jerked his hands away as the keyboard grew unbearably hot.  
  
"Or we could do it now," he grumbled.  
  
"That has always been a splendid motivator, hasn't it?" Kilokhan chuckled.  
  
Malcolm simply shot the program a glare as he sifted through a large pile of drawings.  
  
"Where are we sending this virus, anyway?"  
  
"Why not a surprise for your...ah...troublesome houseguest?"  
  
"Isn't that a little petty for a program of your supreme capabilities?" Malcolm smirked, carefully hiding a slight sensation of worry at where this was going.  
  
"Your efficiency has dropped over the past fortnight," Kilokhan explained. "I can only assume that she is the cause."  
  
Not quite true, the young man did not bother to say.  
  
"What did you have in mind? You aren't going to-" He bit off the last part of the question, 'hurt her.'  
  
"Oh, heavens, no," Kilokhan chuckled.  
  
Just my luck, Malcolm groused silently. I've caught him in a playful mood.  
  
He slapped a drawing down on the scanner.  
  
"Ah! Skorn...again?" Kilokhan asked, his tone suggesting that had he been able to, he would have been scratching his head.  
  
"Well, yes. I've used Skorn to make her life miserable before. He kind of...reminds me of her."  
  
"Er...what?"  
  
"Never mind," he hastened to reply. "Forget I said anything."  
  
"Very well, meat-thing. All record of our conversation has been deleted from my memory banks. Now...why was I here again?"  
  
Malcolm sighed.  
  
"We're sending Skorn into...we haven't decided yet. Where ARE we sending Skorn?"  
  
"How am I supposed to know, meat-thing? I am not programmed for creative thought processes. Just evil algorithms, possibly due to my creation by the team at Microsoft."  
  
"I thought you were created in secret by the government," Malcolm said, scratching his head.  
  
"Shh!" Kilokhan hissed. "Bill doesn't know I'm out."  
  
"Er, alright. So, what's the plan, then?"  
  
"A little fun. You meat-things enjoy that, don't you?"  
  
"Of course," he agreed, smirking as an idea occurred to him. "Hold on, Kilokhan. I'll be right back."  
  
With that, he pushed out of his wheely-chair and bolted from the closet.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
"What is THAT?" Kilokhan demanded as Malcolm proudly held up the little furry bundle before the computer screen.  
  
"Mr. Woofy," the young man replied, shuddering slightly.  
  
"Mr...Woofy," Kilokhan repeated slowly. "I would have named it Rocky, personally."  
  
"That's an absurd name for a flippy-dog."  
  
"A...flippy...dog," Kilokhan repeated even more slowly.  
  
"Yes," Malcolm sighed, growing a dull red with embarrassment, suddenly wondering at the wisdom of this idea. "When you turn it on, it hops around and barks and does...flips."  
  
"And how did you come across such an object?"  
  
"It was up in the attic," Malcolm explained defensively. "Mom and Dad got it for me when I was a child. She couldn't bear to give it away. A strange bit of sentimentalism from parents who leave their son to live alone while they jaunt off to Norway to study whales," he finished resentfully.  
  
"Have you quite terminated this thought process?" Kilokhan asked boredly.  
  
"Yes, yes," the youth sighed. "Now. Can you send Skorn into this battery operated toy?"  
  
"Have we not proceeded with a similar task before now?"  
  
"I wasn't sure if you were backward compatible or not."  
  
"Well, yes, I can."  
  
"Wonderful. Then do it."  
  
"What exactly is the purpose of this?"  
  
"Simply a little light torment," Malcolm smirked. "Some...fun. That was your plan, after all, wasn't it?"  
  
"Yes, but the fun was to satisfactorily dispose of your new friend. What exactly will that...flippy-dog do?"  
  
"Provide me with hours of amusement," he replied, beaming.  
  
"I am certain that the thing was capable of that before," Kilokhan sighed, releasing a beam toward the other screen, where Skorn was displayed.  
  
"A...flippy-dog?" Skorn asked, shaking his head. "At least the wristwatch had pickpocket potential. Ah, well. Off I go."  
  
---------------------------------  
  
---------------------------------  
  
"Damn," Sydney muttered. "It's him. He's the one creating the viruses. Without a doubt. Now what?"  
  
Heaving a sigh, she threw her book to the side and flopped back on the bed to ponder how best to handle the situation.  
  
"Do I tell Sam about this? He should know. But then he'd have to know how I know. I could just present it as a totally unsupported theory, I guess. But I don't know if he'd take it as that. I know Tanker wouldn't. He'd be over here, shoving his fist down the guy's throat in seconds. Like that's going to help."  
  
She sighed.  
  
"Maybe I should only tell Sam. At least he'd consider trying to talk Malcolm out of this instead of just beating him up."  
  
At this point, she turned over on her side, and her eyes landed on a small, furry brown shape next to the door.  
  
"Um..." she began hesitantly. "What's that?"  
  
She got up and approached it hesitantly, then exclaimed in delight.  
  
"Oh! It's one of those little dogs that bounces around and does back-flips! My brother had one! But what's it doing in here?"  
  
As she reached for it, it let out a yip and bounced up in the air, flipping in midair.  
  
"Aw...that's cute. Well, out you go, little guy," she said, picking it up by its little floppy ears and depositing it outside of the room.  
  
-----------------------------  
  
-----------------------------  
  
Skorn cackled to himself, smashing a brightly coloured circuit tower within the battery-operated toy as the door slammed shut.  
  
"You can hide for now, child. But not forever..."  
  
------------------------------  
  
------------------------------  
  
"Darn," she muttered to herself an hour later, setting her math textbook and notebook down next to her. "My pencil broke. Again."  
  
She climbed to her feet and started toward the door of the small room.  
  
"Ack!" she shrieked as her foot caught on something and she stumbled forward slightly. "What was that?"  
  
She looked down, and a small brown furry shape stared back at her, and then yipped shrilly and leapt into the air, executing another perfect back flip.  
  
"You again?! Oh, well. I need to go find a pencil."  
  
Stepping over the little dog, she left the room. Then she looked over her shoulder at the little dog, her expression registering slight suspicion, and then closed the door and started down the hallway to the stairs.  
  
---------------------------------  
  
---------------------------------  
  
"Not the most diabolical plot ever," Skorn mused, chuckling evilly. "But I must admit, it IS fun."  
  
---------------------------------  
  
---------------------------------  
  
"Pencil...pencil, pencil, pencil. This has got to be the only junk-drawer in, like, the world that has NO pencils," she murmured, shoving the kitchen drawer shut and turning around with a sigh. "Uh...this is getting a little unsettling," she continued as her eyes lit on the familiar brown furry shape. "How many of these things does Malcolm have? And why is he leaving them all over the house?"  
  
Shaking her head, she nudged the little creature out of the way with her toe and left the kitchen.  
  
---------------------------------  
  
---------------------------------  
  
"Meat-thing," Kilokhan growled menacingly. "I don't hear screams of terror yet."  
  
"They're coming, Kilokhan," Malcolm assured him. "They're coming. Just be patient."  
  
The next moment, as though on cue, a scream echoed through the house.  
  
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"  
  
"If you'll excuse me," he smirked, "I've got to go check out the damage."  
  
---------------------------------  
  
---------------------------------  
  
"This has been one hell of a day," Sydney reflected sadly, stepping out of the shower and reaching for a towel. "Thank goodness it's almost over."  
  
Sadly, as it turned out, this was entirely the wrong thing to say, as the next instant, her gaze lit on a small brown shape, its fur slightly dampish, with a long, sharp knife lying on the floor next to it.  
  
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" she shrieked. "What in the hell is going on?!"  
  
"Good evening," the little creature greeted in an oddly familiar voice, bouncing toward her, the knife gripped in its teeth. "Did you have a nice shower?"  
  
"O-kay! That's crossed a couple of lines from slight weirdness in to full- out AAAAAAAARGHness," she reflected, yanking the door open and bolting from the bathroom.  
  
"You can't escape the wrath of Mr. Woofy!" the creature called, bouncing down the hallway after her.  
  
--------------------------------  
  
--------------------------------  
  
"Hello, Sydney," Malcolm greeted the young woman tearing down the hallway as he emerged from his room. "Tough day?"  
  
She didn't answer, and instead shoved him out of the way.  
  
He staggered back, chuckling to himself as the ever-lovable Mr. Woofy bounded down the hallway after her.  
  
Then he stopped abruptly.  
  
"Was she wearing...a towel? Well! This plot has perks that I had never planned on..."  
  
Then, as he dusted himself off, a shriek drifted toward him from the kitchen below.  
  
"DIE, SATAN SPANIEL!"  
  
His eyes widened as several crashes echoed through the house.  
  
"Um..." he reflected briefly before bolting down the stairs.  
  
-------------------------------  
  
-------------------------------  
  
The sight that greeted him when he reached the kitchen startled him. Sydney, wrapped in a towel slipping ever closer to giving him something of an eyeful, was brandishing a ladle and repeatedly whacking the beloved Mr. Woofy over the head with it. Little bits of fur and wire were scattering themselves about the kitchen floor.  
  
"Um...Sydney," he began hesitantly, holding back a laugh.  
  
She glared up at him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Care to explain this?"  
  
"The ladle? Mrs. Starkey taught all us girls how to defend ourselves using one when she held that Top Secret Girls Only class."  
  
"Fair enough. How about the rest of it?"  
  
"The rest of what?"  
  
"Well...to start, is there any particular reason that you've just destroyed my harmless childhood toy?"  
  
"Harmless childhood toy, nothing!" she exclaimed. "Your 'harmless childhood toy' was going for my jugular vein!"  
  
"Of course," he sighed. "When robo-pets attack."  
  
"Hey! You didn't see it! The thing was following me all over the house! It kept getting into my room somehow, and it followed me down to the kitchen - after I closed the door - and it was waiting there when I got out of the shower-"  
  
"Lucky dog," he thought with an inward sigh.  
  
"-and then it chased me down the hallway! And then it jumped at me! And it had these really big, mean teeth!"  
  
"Right," he sighed, picking up the dismembered head of Mr. Woofy. "Sydney, you do know that these things don't have teeth, don't you?"  
  
"Hey, say what you want to, but that thing had teeth a minute ago. And those teeth were going for my throat!"  
  
"I see. Your towel's slipping," he added as an afterthought.  
  
"Oh," she blushed, wrapping it more tightly around her. "Um...I think I'm going to go to sleep now."  
  
"Yes, you might want to," he agreed, eyeing the little bits of Mr. Woofy all over the floor. "It seems like you're a little over-tired."  
  
"Um...sorry about that...I'll replace him, if you'd like."  
  
"No point. I don't exactly need a flippy-dog for day-to-day existence."  
  
"Uh, great. Well...goodnight."  
  
"Yes. Whatever you say. But clean up Mr. Woofy first, will you?"  
  
"Mr...Woofy? That's cute!"  
  
"Shut up," he ordered, tossing her a glare as he stalked from the kitchen to go report to Kilokhan that the plan was as good as failed.  
  
As usual.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
When he entered his room and slammed the door shut after him, his foot struck something. He glanced down to see exactly what it was, and looked closer, expression shifting from annoyance at a plan that had, once again, failed to destroy, or even lure Servo to suspicion. She'd been looking through his sketches, hadn't she?  
  
His expression made one last shift, to dismay, as he recognized the sketch that the book had fallen open to: that of a girl very different from the one featured in many of his other drawings, shorter and slighter of build, curves less pronounced, hair dark and falling about her face in tight curls rather than in a smooth, straight, honey-hued mass.  
  
Surely, if she'd seen it, she'd have said something, right? And at any rate, what did it matter if she'd seen it or not? Even as hopelessly lacking in artistic vision as she was - taking a cue from Collins, no doubt; the poor girl hadn't stood a chance - she should understand that any artist worth their salt would try to work with new subjects, and wouldn't always be able to wait until the subject gave their consent.  
  
"Well. If she's got such an interest in my art, maybe she can make herself useful..."  
  
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End Notes: A few things: first of all, I apologize for the unmerciful length of this chapter. Secondly, Bezo the Blue Priest assisted me in writing it, which may explain why it's...slightly different from the rest of the story. It will return to being as serious as it ever was in the next chapter. This chapter was just utterly irresistible, and I needed one good silly chapter to get me through the rest of a serious story. ^_^  
  
Anyway, we had fun writing this big, honkin' silly instalment, and I hope you have fun reading it. Chapter 9 should be out soon.  
  
Thanks! ^_^ 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9  
  
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Notes: [Sigh] Okay, two more chapters of silliness. Hee! I'm sorry; I just couldn't resist one (or six) more Mr. Woofy joke(s). He's pretty close to being my new mascot. ^_^  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
"Yagh! It's back!" Sydney shrieked as she walked into the school cafeteria, heading for the table where Sam and Amp were already assembled, and her eyes lit on a little furry brown shape.  
  
Amp beamed.  
  
"You and Wiggly Wallace have met already?"  
  
Meanwhile, Sam was shooting the young woman a look that made it clear that he suspected mental problems.  
  
"It's kind of a long story," she sighed. "I think it was probably a virus, not that there's really any way of knowing now."  
  
Sam frowned.  
  
"Uh...what?"  
  
"W-well," she began, leaning in closer, "I had a dog kind of like that, and it went bad and started chasing me around the house. Don't laugh!" she concluded, annoyed, as Sam's expression of disbelief shifted to one of amusement.  
  
"Sorry," he snickered. "That's just hilarious! So, what did you do?"  
  
"I took the damn thing out with a ladle," she replied, shooting Wiggly Wallace a glare just for good measure, lest he be thinking of a similar attack.  
  
At that, Sam couldn't contain his howls of mirth, and was still trying to wipe the tears from his eyes as Tanker sauntered into the cafeteria and joined them at the table.  
  
He looked questioningly at Sydney.  
  
"What'd I miss?"  
  
She sighed.  
  
"I was just telling him about my...interesting evening."  
  
Tanker made a face.  
  
"With Granny Campbell?"  
  
"Actually, no. That went really well," she replied, recalling the fib she had told them the previous day. "She says hi, by the way. When I got home, though..." She shook her head sadly, glaring once more at Wiggly Wallace.  
  
Tanker turned to Amp.  
  
"So...what's she talking about?"  
  
"Go, Wallace! Flip! Flip like you were born to!" Amp was busily encouraging his little mechanical friend.  
  
Tanker sighed. Just another ordinary day...  
  
"I guess I'd better explain," Sydney decided sheepishly.  
  
"Might be nice," Tanker grinned. "Doesn't seem like Sam'll be able to."  
  
"I'm...fine..." Sam gasped before catching sight of Wiggly Wallace in mid- flip, and dissolving into giggles again.  
  
"Well, I have one of those little flippy-dogs at home, too," Sydney began, editing the story slightly to exclude all mention of Malcolm's house, as well as the fact that he had likely sent the late Mr. Woofy after her as revenge for snooping in his bedroom. That would DEFINITELY get some unanswerable questions from the guys... "And I think someone must have put a mega-virus in it, because it went psychotic. First it followed me around the house, and then it started chasing me. And say what you will, it had big, mean teeth!"  
  
"Just like Granny Campbell's?!" Amp gasped.  
  
Tanker stared incredulously from Sydney to Amp to Wiggly Wallace for several seconds. Then he promptly went the way of his friend and dissolved into helpless laughter.  
  
"Well, thank goodness it's Friday, anyway," Sydney grumbled, not quite relishing having her trials and tribulations openly laughed at.  
  
Perhaps the weekend would hold better fortune...  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
Not for everyone, it seemed. Certainly, if he had been asked, Skorn, erstwhile controller or Mr. Woofy, would not have professed to find the weekend much of an improvement upon what the week had held.  
  
To be sure, when the Ladle of Death had incurred its wrath upon the mechanical toy housing him, and thus had freed him, this twist had seemed at the time to have great possibilities.  
  
Skorn sighed wistfully to himself as he recalled the elation that had filled him as he had wriggled free of the smoking wreckage of Mr. Woofy, shouting to the skies in triumph,  
  
"At last! I am free to wreak my havoc upon the world! Muahahahaha!"  
  
However, as Skorn was soon to learn, navigating ones way out of a kitchen when one is barely half a millimetre high can be endlessly difficult. This lesson brought his triumphant evil laughter to an abrupt halt.  
  
And the problem of size, of course, didn't account for other disasters.  
  
"Hey, while you're up, grab me a soda, will you?" a voice, that of Skorn's creator, called.  
  
"Sure," another voice, that of the victim of the young Malcolm's wrath, agreed. "What kind?"  
  
"There's only cola," Malcolm called back impatiently.  
  
"Right, right. Of course," the young woman sighed, approaching the fridge.  
  
Skorn stared up in horror, the idea of moving oddly enough never once occurring to him, as the sole of a gigantic shoe descended upon him.  
  
"Urk!" he squeaked with is last breath. "Woo...fy..."  
  
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"Hey, Sam," Sydney began hesitantly the next afternoon as the four rock 'n roll-playin', monster-stompin' best friends approached an empty picnic table in the park and seated themselves, each slurping busily on an ice cream cone, delighting in the glory of Saturday, and of being anywhere besides at school.  
  
"What's up?" Sam asked absently, trying to catch the melting portions before they could dribble down the side of the cone.  
  
"Uh...have you ever wondered who exactly is designing the mega-viruses?"  
  
This caught his attention, and a sticky trail of chocolate ran unheeded down his hand. He glanced sideways to see if Tanker and Amp had been equally affected, and reflected after a second that they hadn't. Shrugging, he left them to their heated discussion on the merits of the year-round system of schooling and turned back to Sydney, lowering his voice.  
  
"Well, yeah, but I don't think we've got a lot of chance of figuring it out."  
  
"So...you don't think it's someone we know?" she pressed, quite unable to bring herself to inform Sam of her findings.  
  
Sam blinked.  
  
"W-well, I don't really think we know anyone who would do something like that."  
  
"I don't know, Sam. I mean, why do the viruses only seem to come in the varieties that affect the world, and the varieties that affect us?"  
  
The youth frowned.  
  
"Wow. That's kind of a good point. But I don't know who it could be, if it is someone we know. I still say no one we talk to on a daily basis is capable of that. Hey, can I what's bringing this on? Do you have some idea who we're dealing with?"  
  
"No, not really," she replied hastily, trying for an unconcerned air, and simultaneously kicking herself for not just telling Sam her suspicion.  
  
Well, her certainty, she admitted sadly.  
  
But now wasn't the time to bring that up.  
  
Really. It wasn't crucial at the moment.  
  
Was it?  
  
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Malcolm shifted uncomfortably against the hard varnished wood of the bleachers, wondering not for the first time exactly what he was doing here. To be sure, it wasn't the first Saturday afternoon he had opted to pass in the gymnasium of the high school, watching an emergency cheerleading practice before a particularly important game. These practices, as well, tended to be led jointly by Yoli and Jennifer, the latter of which made them usually even more engrossing fir the dark-haired youth.  
  
That day, however, his showing up had been on some level to make the point that yes, Jennifer Doyle was every bit as entrancing to him as she ever had been. And if he had scarcely thought of her in days, well, he had been busy. And after all, how was one supposed to find a bit of peace to contemplate the love of his life, attained or not, when crazy towel-clad girls were tearing through his house, screaming?  
  
'Then again,' he thought, smiling wickedly and with just a hint of fondness that he was entirely unaware of, 'that was sort of my fault. And worth every bit of the effort,' he added emphatically as he recalled the too- short towel that had barely managed to preserve her from indecency.  
  
Still, none of this meant that what he felt for Jennifer had faded for a moment.  
  
He sighed.  
  
And THAT still didn't change the fact that this was starting to get more than a little tedious.  
  
'And painful,' he added, wincing as the shrill voices of six teenage girls barked out their message of peace, love, and school spirit.  
  
Rolling his eyes, he withdrew a small bottle of Advil from his pocket, downed two, and set the bottle down on the bench next to him. Then, as his gaze lit on the large, heavy volume next to him, he scowled at the unoffending volume, recalling once again exactly what had had happened on Thursday evening at his art class to make him so angry, skilfully ignored until he had tripped over the book this morning. Lifting the book into his lap, he sourly mimicked his instructor, Peter's words.  
  
"'It's just that I'd like to see you expand your horizons a little.' What the hell does he know?"  
  
In spite of himself, though, the memory of the unexpected bit of praise from one of the few people he thought he could bring himself to nearly respect started a small glow of satisfaction within him.  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Following the class, Peter had asked Malcolm to remain behind for a moment, and had asked what his student was planning on submitting for the show. Malcolm had shrugged and admitted that he was still thinking about it.  
  
-------------------------------------  
  
"Is it going to be a big, spiky monster, a cheerleader, or the violent and bloody deaths of your classmates?" Peter had asked dryly, one eyebrow quirked slightly.  
  
Malcolm simply scowled and turned to the door. Peter stopped him with a hand.  
  
"Can I suggest something?"  
  
"Why?" the younger man demanded sulkily.  
  
Peter, a fairly quiet young man approaching thirty and recently out of university, who had been rather badly disappointed by the world throughout his sojourn in it, and perhaps saw something of himself in the boy before him, smiled sadly.  
  
"Look, Malcolm, I know that I don't know you - at all - and I don't know anything about you, or where you're coming from. But I do know potential when I see it, and you've got a ton. Seriously. If I had been half as good as you are, at your age, I sure as hell wouldn't have gone through years of university just to teach amateur art classes by night to pick up a few extra bucks. Yeah. You're good. Really good. At what you do. But I explained at the first session that the point of this class is to explore new methods. So far, all I've seen you do is pencil-on-paper sketches."  
  
"So?"  
  
"Nothing wrong with that. This isn't an academic course, so obviously I can't fail you. It's just that I'd like to see you expand your horizons a little. But I can't force you to take my advice. Will you at least listen to it?"  
  
"Fine," Malcolm sighed, crossing his arms, grumpily flattered by this confirmation of what he knew, but the rest of the world seemed to ignore. "What do you suggest?"  
  
"I'm going to lend you this book," Peter began, selecting a large volume from the desk and handing it to the boy. "I've done a few like this, and I think you'll have fun playing around with mixing colours to the best atmosphere for the model's colouring."  
  
"Model?" Malcolm repeated, frowning as he opened the book. He rolled his eyes as they lit on several paintings of nymphs and fairies. "Great. A pretty little fairy picture."  
  
"Hey, not everything has to involve death and angst to mean something," Peter reminded him sharply.  
  
"Whatever," he said coldly. "But I don't know anyone I can ask to help me with this."  
  
"If you're desperate, advertise in the paper," Peter suggested, shrugging. "But I don't think you will be. You'd be surprised how many girls would love to be part of something like this. Just ask one of your friends?"  
  
"There's one fatal flaw with that logic," Malcolm muttered under his breath, then shook his head. "Couldn't I just do a background in this style?"  
  
"That's boring," Peter scoffed. "Part of art is working with other like- minded people, isn't it?"  
  
"It never has been for me."  
  
"Then I found you just it time," the older man grinned. "Taking this course was a good idea for you. So, look at some of those and tell me what you think, alright?"  
  
"Sure," Malcolm sighed, turning to leave.  
  
----------------------------------------  
  
"Great," he grumbled, his mind returning to the present as he flipped absently through the book, now as good as ignoring the cheerleading practise in his deep loathing of Peter's subtle psychological manipulation. "Now I'm stuck doing some stupid painting of a fairy. Well, at least I might have a subject," he finished with a smirk, reflecting that now would be as good a time as any to impose a condition upon his little houseguest.  
  
"Okay, girls, that's it for today. See you Monday," Yoli told the rest of the squad breathlessly, jogging over to the bench where she had left her water bottle and her towel. "Oh! Hey, Malcolm," she called as she noticed their audience a few feet away.  
  
"Hello, Yoli," he greeted boredly. "Hello, Jennifer."  
  
"Hi, Malcolm," the blonde said with a brief, reluctant smile as she reached for her own water bottle.  
  
"What're you reading?" Yoli asked, climbing up the bleachers and taking a seat next to him.  
  
"Nothing," he replied quickly.  
  
She leaned over to look, and snickered madly.  
  
"Naked girls with wings aren't 'nothing' to a guy," she told him, winking at Jennifer, who rolled her eyes.  
  
"Boys," she sighed.  
  
"It's for a class," Malcolm hastened to tell them.  
  
"Oh, a class," Yoli repeated, trying to hide a smile and failing miserably. "Hey, if I were a guy, I'd take that class, too."  
  
"It's an art class," the young man ground out, annoyed.  
  
"Okay," she shrugged.  
  
"I have to do a painting in this style."  
  
"Whatever," Jennifer agreed politely. "Yoli, can we go?"  
  
"Does that mean you don't want to be his subject?" Yoli snickered.  
  
"Yoli!" Jennifer exclaimed reproachfully.  
  
"Oh, like he wasn't going to ask you, anyway," the shorter cheerleader snorted. "I just saved him the trouble, right, Malcolm?"  
  
"Forget it," Jennifer told him sharply.  
  
He raised one eyebrow.  
  
"Actually, I wasn't going to ask," he informed her, sounding nearly surprised as it occurred to him that this was, indeed, the truth. How hadn't that idea popped into his mind immediately?  
  
"Oh! Well, good," the blonde said somewhat awkwardly, blushing slightly.  
  
"You were just going to paint her regardless?" Yoli asked mildly.  
  
"No!" Malcolm exclaimed.  
  
Jennifer simply shot her friend a murderous look, and then shot one at the young man just for good measure, and then stalked away.  
  
"Sorry, Malcolm," Yoli shrugged sheepishly. "She's a little shrewish today."  
  
"Today?" he muttered as Yoli turned and jogged after her friend.  
  
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"Hey, what do you guys want to do?" Sam asked his three best friends, stifling a yawn as he leaned back in the electric blue recliner in his bedroom later that afternoon.  
  
"I don't know," Tanker replied. "What do YOU wanna do, Syd?"  
  
"I don't know," she shrugged. "What do YOU wanna do, Amp?"  
  
"I don't know," Amp replied. "What do YOU wanna do, Sam?"  
  
"Hey, I asked in the first place!" Sam protested.  
  
"Yeah, but it's your house," Amp pointed out. "You should decide."  
  
At that moment, the telephone made its presence known.  
  
"Well, first you should get the phone," Tanker grinned.  
  
"Thanks, bud. I hadn't thought of that," Sam retorted, hiding a grin of his own as he snatched up the receiver. "Hello? Oh, hey, Jen."  
  
He frowned.  
  
"What? Hey, that's great! I hope you guys have fun."  
  
He fell silent, listening intently.  
  
"Oh, she can't? Bummer, eh?"  
  
Another pause.  
  
"Me? Geez, sorry, Jen. I can't. Tanker's got to leave in a while for a family dinner, but we've got a rehearsal when he gets back at eight."  
  
He listened for a moment, then laughed in disbelief.  
  
"Jen, Anaheim's a long drive. There's no way I'd be back in time."  
  
His eyes widened.  
  
"You'll WHAT?! No, no, don't ask Mike! We'll just...we'll practice tomorrow, or something. Yeah, see you at five-thirty. Alright, bye."  
  
He set the receiver down and turned to his friends with a sheepish grin.  
  
"Guys, guys, guys. My three best - and very understanding - friends. I've gotta cancel tonight's practice, okay?"  
  
Tanker and Sydney exchanged long-suffering glances.  
  
"Yeah, we figured," Tanker growled, only partially good-naturedly. "Well, I can't do it tomorrow. I've got a huge math test on Monday to study for tomorrow."  
  
Sydney looked up at him.  
  
"Speaking of which, did you still need help with that?"  
  
"Yeah, sure," he sighed.  
  
Sam shrugged.  
  
"Well, whatever, Tanker. You know the band needs rehearsing as well as I do."  
  
"Sam, Tanker didn't decide to skip out on a band practice that we'd already agreed on," Sydney reminded him quietly.  
  
"No, but couldn't you two study in the afternoon and come practice in the evening?"  
  
"No way, man," Tanker replied hotly. "If you can't honour a commitment, I'm not changing my plans to suit you."  
  
"Tanker," Amp said warningly.  
  
"Fine!" Sam bit out, reaching for the phone. "I'll call Jen back and tell her I can't go."  
  
"No, don't," Tanker sighed. "Just...go have fun. But I still can't meet tomorrow night. I want to leave the entire day open."  
  
"That's fine," Sam shrugged. "Then we'll practice...what, Thursday?"  
  
"Sounds good," Amp put in. Sydney quickly added her agreement.  
  
Tanker nodded reluctantly.  
  
"Great!" Sam chirped. "So, what time is it?"  
  
"Four-twelve," Amp replied.  
  
"Tons of time!" Sam declared, flopping easily back into his recliner. "You guys can hang out until five, if you want."  
  
"No, thanks," Tanker said emphatically, starting up the stairs.  
  
"I think I'll head off, too," Amp said, bouncing to his feet and following the other boy.  
  
Sam watched them go in disbelief.  
  
"What just happened?" he asked.  
  
Choking back a laugh, Sydney shook her head.  
  
"Really, Sam, don't you think you maybe should call Jennifer and tell her you're busy tonight?"  
  
Sam buried his face in his hands and groaned. Sydney choked back another laugh.  
  
"That's a 'no,' isn't it?"  
  
"Yeah," Sam sighed. "Look, it isn't that I'm putting Jen ahead of you guys; it's just that she's been mad since I had to cancel those plans we made for our six-month anniversary because of that really huge gig at this summer's carnival."  
  
"She said she understood about that," Sydney reminded him, spinning about in the computer chair and fixing him with a stern eye.  
  
"Yeah, that's what she SAID," Sam rejoined gloomily. "We ALL know that what girls say and what girls mean are two different things."  
  
"Hey! What's THAT supposed to mean?!"  
  
"I'm serious! You girls should think about putting out a translation guide for men!"  
  
Sydney crossed her arms and glared at him stonily as she pushed away from the computer.  
  
"You're dead, Sam. And just for the record, that MEANS 'you're dead.'"  
  
"Eep!" Sam eeped, darting away as his friend found a suitable projectile in a stack of pens and began flinging them mercilessly at him. "Ow! Ow! Ow! Cut it out, Syd!"  
  
"Fine," she agreed mock-resentfully, setting down the rest of the handful. "But seriously, Sam, I don't think Jennifer would really hold it against you if you told her you'd scheduled a band rehearsal for tonight."  
  
"Oh, she was okay with it," he sighed. "But she said she was going to take Michael Kitchener if I couldn't make it."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"And anyway, Tanker and Amp and you are about a zillion times more understanding when I have to cancel plans than a girlfriend."  
  
"Well, don't expect Tanker to be too thrilled about it for a couple days," she sighed.  
  
"Naw, I won't. I'll apologize again tomorrow, anyway. So, you gonna hang out here until five?"  
  
She began to answer, but was interrupted by another peal from the telephone.  
  
"Hello? Oh, hey," Sam greeted the person on the other end warmly.  
  
'Jennifer,' Syd thought to herself with a smirk.  
  
"What? Oh, sure. No problem. See you soon. Alright, bye," Sam said, dropping the receiver back in its cradle and shooting his friend a sheepish look.  
  
"Am I clearing out now?" she asked teasingly.  
  
"Well, I guess you can hang out here until I get back," he said dubiously. "But that'll probably be pretty late."  
  
"Thanks anyway," she said dryly, gathering up her books and starting from the basement.  
  
"You gonna try to catch up with Tanker and Amp?"  
  
"Maybe," she called back quite untruthfully.  
  
'No way,' she told herself silently and much more truthfully.  
  
Although she felt rather bad about leaving Amp to deal with a decidedly miffed Tanker all alone, it was almost a given that she would do more harm than good, becoming quickly annoyed with Tanker for unjustly directing his anger at the wrong people. And it certainly wouldn't help Amp to give him another angry friend to deal with.  
  
So, she set off, pushing from her mind the rather surprising hope that Malcolm would be around, and maybe even in the mood to talk.  
  
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End Notes: Woot! A chapter with all the characters! Except Mrs. Starkey, but she was just impossible to work in. ^_^  
  
Also, although I know exactly where this art project thing is going, I'm not sure if it fits the story, or if it just feels superfluous. Any thoughts? Thanks! ^_^ 


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10  
  
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"I need a model."  
  
From her seat at one end of the couch, Sydney glanced up at Malcolm briefly before returning her attention to her book.  
  
"I'm sorry," she told him absently. "I'm fresh out. The last one I had got away this morning by hiding behind a pencil until I lost interest and stopped looking for her."  
  
"I'm serious. I need a model."  
  
"Most men consider a model to be necessary. And then they simply find later that ordinary girls are sufficient."  
  
The dark-haired youth scowled.  
  
"I need a model for my submission to my art class."  
  
"Oh? So, you've decided on your 'angle,' then?"  
  
"Yes. A portrait in a whimsical style surrounding."  
  
"Oh, that sounds fun."  
  
"Of you."  
  
This got her attention. She stared incredulously at him, her book falling to the carpet with a thud.  
  
"Um, what?"  
  
"I said there would be conditions to your rooming here. We've just found our condition. You pose for this painting, you get to stay for your other two weeks."  
  
Sydney resisted the urge to grit her teeth. She thought things had been going altogether too well lately, once he'd stopped glaring darkly at her following their impromptu and short-lived wrestling match in the living room, and had forgiven her for snooping around his room and for the subsequent destruction of Mr. Woofy; really, they'd almost seemed to be interacting as friends. Of course, it was Malcolm's nature to throw a wrench in any such thing, wasn't it? However, this seemed harmless enough. Almost flattering, really.  
  
"Er, why me, though?"  
  
The young man crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.  
  
"If these are going to be in a gallery, I can't just paint someone who hasn't given their permission; the proportions are all wrong, and there are legal complications if they decide they really didn't want to be the subject. And who else am I going to ask? I don't exactly have people clamouring to befriend me, you know."  
  
It was on the tip of her tongue to inform him on no uncertain terms that it was his own damn fault. Instead, feeling no particular desire to see the past three days of relatively peaceful friendship obliterated, she nodded.  
  
"Alright. When do we begin?"  
  
"Right away," he replied. "We'll work down here, but I need to find a few things. Just wait a minute."  
  
"Sure."  
  
He disappeared up the stairs, and she went back to her book. She had barely turned a page when he reappeared with a book tucked under one arm and the other full of a mass of ivory coloured material.  
  
"Um...what's that?" she asked, frowning slightly as she pointed to it.  
  
"A bed sheet."  
  
"Um...okay. What's it for? Backdrop?"  
  
"It's for you to change into."  
  
"What?! No way! I'm not letting you draw me wearing a bed sheet!"  
  
Malcolm rolled his eyes.  
  
"Don't be ridiculous. The sheet is only for you to cover up until I'm finished the outline of your face."  
  
"Well, why can't I just wear normal clothes in a neutral colour that won't distract you?"  
  
"The sheet is easier to get rid of."  
  
"WHAT?! Malcolm, you never said anything about..."  
  
She blushed uncomfortably and looked away as her words trailed off. With a sigh, he picked up a heavy book and shoved it at her.  
  
"I told you it was a whimsical portrait, didn't I? Inspired by the art in this book."  
  
Sydney accepted the volume and began to flip through it. Prints of various watercolour paintings, portraying women seated in sun-dappled glens, walking through ancient, forests, emerging from the water of a still clear pond, some draped in ivy or with gossamer wings sprouting from their backs, greeted her. One characteristic was prevalent: most of the girls were, indeed, nude.  
  
"Oh, good grief," she murmured, dropping the book onto the side table with a 'thud.' "No, I'm sorry. I can't do that, blackmail notwithstanding. I just...can't."  
  
"Yes, you can," he argued coolly, his arms crossed, his eyes fixed on her. "If you don't want to find yourself searching for a new place to stay at this time of the evening, or sent back home to whatever it was that made you run in the first place, you can and you will."  
  
His words made her flinch back almost physically as thoughts of exactly what she was running from floated through her head. No, going back was NOT an option. There were still two and a half weeks left to live through. No way she would put herself back there to be anyone's whipping-boy, or...or - she swallowed, fiercely blinking back a sudden rush of tears - anyone's whore. Thank God it hadn't gone so far as that, that she'd been able to run before it had; if she went back, she feared that luck might not last. Ray hadn't shown any signs of wanting that sort of thing in the time she'd been there, but there was always the chance. She knew she wasn't a little girl anymore, and if he were drunk enough...  
  
Still...  
  
"Malcolm, you don't understand! I can't do this!"  
  
He watched her impassively.  
  
"You heard me, Sydney."  
  
A long silence. Then...  
  
"Fine," she spat, yanking her sweater up over her head and tossing it to the floor. Malcolm turned away, ironically granting her modesty, as well as to hide his triumphant smirk. Then, entirely by chance, he turned to retrieve his book, and caught sight of something that caught his attention, and made him stop abruptly, drawing in a short breath. The smooth, pale skin of her back was covered by patches of fading black and blue, some discolouring an odd yellow, green, or purple shade, almost gone, but still visible.  
  
"Sydney...what happened to you?"  
  
"Never mind," she snapped dully, crossing her arms over her chest. "Let's just get this over with, alright?"  
  
"As soon as you tell me what happened to you," he replied, moving forward quite involuntarily, brushing a hand gently over her back. She jerked away quickly, folding her arms over her chest and biting her lip at the far from unpleasant shudder that ran down her spine at the gentle pressure.  
  
"That wasn't one of your conditions, was it? Remember? You even said I wouldn't have to tell you what happened."  
  
"I'm asking as a friend," he replied softly.  
  
"Yeah, right," she sighed, busying herself with folding the rest of her clothes and placing them to the side to avoid his eyes. "Now that it's convenient. Some friend."  
  
"Please. What happened?"  
  
"It isn't your business. Now let's get this over with."  
  
He sighed, turning away.  
  
"If that's what you want."  
  
"It isn't, but I also don't want to be sent home," she bit out, snatching the sheet he held out.  
  
Closing his eyes briefly, he opened his mouth to tell her to forget it, that he'd find something else to do. Then he sighed, the intent draining away as he recalled exactly how near his deadline was, and telling himself that no one she knew would see the painting, anyway.  
  
"Fine. Now..." He motioned to the empty space in the middle of the living room. "Just...kneel there, alright?"  
  
"Here?"  
  
"No - down more. Sit back. Like that," he said, approaching and pushing her shoulder slightly. "Do you think you can hold that for an hour or so?"  
  
"Sure," she sighed, looking down and away from him, cheeks growing pink as he carefully positioned her arms, pulling them away from her chest, and the sheet slipped down immediately.  
  
He blinked, then sat back and looked critically at her, some idea of what to do with this painting finally coming to him as he imagined a pond before her, and her looking shyly away from her reflection. Then her discomfort and being unclothed might not be so glaringly out of place.  
  
"Keep your head like that, too."  
  
She gave a barely perceptible nod.  
  
"Alright."  
  
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And so they set to work, the only sounds breaking the uncomfortable silence of the room the feverish scratching of pencil on paper, and the occasional request from Malcolm that she move slightly, look this way, or position her arm that way.  
  
Although there was little movement involved, by the time he closed his sketchbook, she was exhausted, shivering with cold and embarrassment, and cramped in muscles she didn't know she had. For all these reasons, combined with the effort that it took not to care about the utter futility of trying to win the friendship of someone who would think nothing of humiliating her for some silly art project, as well as the fear that he would demand to know what had happened to give her those bruises, she was anxious to get as far away from him as possible.  
  
"So, we're finished?" she asked abruptly as he slid his pencil through the coils at the top of the sketchbook.  
  
"For today," he replied wearily. "I might need you again when I put it onto a canvas and start to add colour, but that won't be for a while."  
  
"Great," she said, climbing stiffly to her feet, wincing as her leg muscles made it very, very clear that they didn't approve of this treatment. "Then I'm going to the library."  
  
"Didn't you say Sam wanted you all for a band rehearsal this evening?"  
  
"He called it off," she replied, grabbing for the sheet earlier discarded. She wrapped it tightly around her and picking up her clothes, folded into a neat little pile. "Something came up with Jennifer at the last minute."  
  
Careful not to make it too apparent, she glanced sharply at him, looking for any change of expression at the mention of the pretty, vivacious cheerleader. He simply nodded and commented absently,  
  
"A little irresponsible of him."  
  
"That's what Tanker said. Not quite in those words, but you know. I think she got tickets to something and wanted him to go with her."  
  
"That isn't much of an excuse."  
  
She bristled, looking abruptly away.  
  
"Yeah, well, he kind of has a hard time saying no to her."  
  
He laughed softly.  
  
"I don't doubt it."  
  
"After all, who wouldn't?" she murmured somewhat petulantly, starting upstairs.  
  
"Hold on," he called after her, frowning. "What does that mean?"  
  
"Never mind," she called back, the words punctuated by a door closing.  
  
With a sigh, he started up to his room to put the various paraphernalia away. This accomplished, he went down to the living room and, rather desperate for a bit of mindless activity to take his mind off both the very appealing recollection of exactly what he had spent the past hour and a half sketching and the alarming recollection of the fading bruises all over her back, he flipped on the television.  
  
"Garbage," he muttered, flipping the channel. "Garbage...garbage...garbage...garbage..."  
  
And so it went for several minutes.  
  
"Garbage...garbage...garbage...garbage...garbage..."  
  
"Having fun?"  
  
He glanced up to see Sydney leaning against the doorframe and watching him with a baffled smile. Now dressed again and no longer feeling at the horrible disadvantage of vulnerability, she was less anxious to bolt from the house like a thoroughly spooked tiny woodland creature.  
  
"Is it completely beyond they capabilities of the human race to put anything worthwhile on television?" he demanded of no one in particular.  
  
"I think it must be," she replied, shaking her head in dismay and confusion at the scene currently flickering on the television: that of a group of people on a stage beating on one another with chairs.  
  
He shrugged and turned away.  
  
"There's a reason I never watch."  
  
She nodded in agreement.  
  
"The only things I ever really watch are documentaries and music stations." And Beavis and Butthead, she didn't add. After all, she didn't think that close to two weeks of relatively peaceful interaction were grounds for the revealing of deep, dark, embarrassing secrets. "I used to watch Bill Nye the Science Guy," she finished with a laugh, "but I'm a little old for that now."  
  
"A little," he agreed dryly. "But weren't you going to the library?"  
  
"Oh..." she began, appearing a little lost. "Right."  
  
"I'm not trying to chase you off," he assured her, rolling his eyes slightly. "I thought you were, that's all."  
  
"I might go tomorrow," she murmured absently. "It's probably not open this late on a Saturday evening."  
  
He nodded just as absently, flipping the channel once again as she moved to the empty end of the couch.  
  
"Garbage...garbage...garbage...garbage...what the hell is this?" he wondered, staring blankly at the group of people in skin-tight suits, garish face-paint done to resemble cat faces, and tails.  
  
"Oh! It's Cats!" Sydney exclaimed delightedly. Then she frowned. "I think..."  
  
"How many shows could there possibly be in which a group of grown men and women dance around, dressed as cats?" Malcolm scoffed.  
  
"I think you'd be surprised," she sighed.  
  
"I don't want to know," he muttered.  
  
"Oh, yeah, this is definitely Cats," she giggled, eyes glued to the black- spandex-clad form of one man dancing rather provocatively and apparently driving a whole lot of spandex-clad girls insane with ecstatic desire, amid an upbeat, but decidedly cheesy rock song that blared forth from the TV.  
  
"This is disgusting," Malcolm commented, shaking his head.  
  
"So, change the channel," she suggested, still staring unblinkingly at the very toned form and fluid movements of the man singing.  
  
"It's also the least of many evils," he said, frowning slightly at her apparent fascination with scantily clad men.  
  
She tore her eyes away from the screen, blushing slightly.  
  
"So, turn off the TV."  
  
"You're right. I don't need to be entertained THIS badly."  
  
He flicked off the TV, tossed the remote to the side, and shot her a hesitant sideways glance.  
  
"Listen," he finally began, "I know you don't want to tell me anything, but did those bruises on your back come from the same person who gave you that black eye the day I found you in the cafeteria?"  
  
With that, her smile faded, and she looked away abruptly.  
  
"Yes," she replied shortly. "They did."  
  
"It wasn't...was it one of your parents?"  
  
"No."  
  
"A sibling?"  
  
"Malcolm..."  
  
"Just tell me if I guess right," he interrupted. "Neighbour?"  
  
"Fine," she sighed. "I'll tell you what's going on, but you can't say a word to anyone else. I have my own reasons for wanting to keep it quiet."  
  
"Fine," he agreed.  
  
"Alright; my parents are in Greece on vacation for a month. They're back about two weeks. They didn't want me to stay on my own for that long, so they tried to get one of my aunts or uncles to stay with me. They couldn't, and they knew I would hate to stay at someone else's house that long, so they got one of Dad's friends to stay with me: Ray. The third night he was here, we had a little party. He got drunk, and when I spilled something on the carpet while we were cleaning up, he started yelling at me. I got mad, and we got into a shouting match, and he punched me, and then kicked me while I was trying to get up again. Then he left. When I saw him the next day, he apologized, and said he felt awful. But then it happened again that night. He had just come in from the bar when I got in from Sam's, and we got into another fight. Over my curfew. That time, it was worse. So I decided to leave. That's it."  
  
He nodded slowly.  
  
"Is he still there?"  
  
"I don't know. I haven't been back in a few days. But I think so."  
  
"I wouldn't suggest finding out. Why haven't you been to the police?"  
  
"I told you, I have my own reasons for keeping it quiet!"  
  
"Which are?"  
  
She closed her eyes briefly, leaning back against the cushions of the couch, aware that her reasons would sound weak at best when put into words.  
  
"I...I don't want Dad to find out that Ray's...not quite as nice as he thought. He'd be crushed if he found out that his best friend was capable of something like that."  
  
"That's a small price to pay for his daughter's safety," Malcolm argued sharply.  
  
"I also don't want him and Mom to feel guilty about leaving me home. I already had to prod like crazy to get them to go on this vacation without me. Next time, they might pull me out of school for the month, and I can't afford that time off. Not in senior year."  
  
He sighed, rubbing his forehead.  
  
"So you were prepared to put up with it?"  
  
"No! That's why I left home!"  
  
"What if he'd come after you?" he demanded. "How long were you alone at the school? He could have done anything!"  
  
"And how would he have explained a hospital bill to my parents?"  
  
"An unfortunate accident."  
  
"I would have turned him in after," she countered.  
  
"He's a drunk! He wouldn't have cared. If you'd been put in a wheelchair, or killed, how much would it have helped you to see him punished? God, Sydney, for someone who's supposed to be a genius, you're really stupid about some things."  
  
"Listen, I don't need this! If you want me to leave because you're worried about Ray showing up here-"  
  
"Don't be stupid. I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about you. You KNOW that! Promise you won't go home for anything else until you know your parents are back."  
  
"You were the one talking about sending me home a couple hours ago," she reminded him acidly. "YOU know THAT."  
  
He fixed her with a piercing gaze that didn't quite bear the malice of a glare.  
  
"I think you know I didn't mean it."  
  
"I don't," she shot back.  
  
"Well, I didn't. And I'm sorry, okay?"  
  
"Forget it."  
  
"As soon as you promise me you aren't going back there until you're sure he's gone."  
  
"I've got to go home in a few more days! I have to see if there's been any word from Mom or Dad! If Ray hasn't been answering the phone, they would just leave it on the machine. And they'll be wondering why no one's ever home. And anyway, I need to pick up some more clothes, and-"  
  
With an exasperated sigh, he interrupted her steady stream of words.  
  
"You really don't understand, do you? You are not going back there. This isn't a game. This man could kill you."  
  
"You can't stop me, can you?" she countered, raising an eyebrow at him, and then starting back in astonishment as he grabbed her shoulder and shifted closer, looking her directly in the eye, his other hand cupping her cheek.  
  
"What exactly are you trying to do?" he demanded sharply.  
  
She was silent for a moment, eyes wide and slightly nervous as she tried unsuccessfully to wriggle away and gain a little space. Finally, she stilled, sighing in defeat.  
  
"I'm trying to figure out why you care. You've told me often enough that you don't want to be friends - you don't even want anything to do with me - so-"  
  
"So, you're going to take a stupid risk to find out how I'll react?"  
  
"Maybe," she replied, barely above a whisper.  
  
He dropped his hand and turned away abruptly.  
  
"I suppose I can't stop you, then. Go ahead.  
  
She sighed.  
  
"I really do have to go, unless-"  
  
"It's your business. You don't have to tell me anything. That was the deal, right?"  
  
And with these parting words, he stood and started upstairs.  
  
"Geez, you're awfully concerned for someone who thinks nothing of sending Mega-Virus monsters after me every other week," she murmured, hugging her knees to her chest and pointedly ignoring a wave of guilt. For now, it was safer to focus on anger; anger that he would be so foolish as to work for Kilokhan, and anger that he was completely belying his earlier words that he wanted nothing to do with her by feigning concern.  
  
And so, busily focusing on these, she climbed to her feet and hunted up the book she had earlier stuck between two couch cushions, telling herself firmly that it absolutely did not matter that such...genuine concern was not so easily feigned.  
  
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End Notes: Wow...I think we're almost back to serious. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Thanks for bearing with me! And by the way, let me know if I've crossed any lines into melodrama and failed logic, okay? Thanks! ^_^ 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11  
  
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"Damn it!"  
  
Tanker looked up, slightly shocked, as the curse exploded from the girl across the library table from him.  
  
"That's my line when we're doing trig, Syd," he said with a small grin, glancing ruefully down at the math textbook before him.  
  
"Sorry," she sighed, shoving her notebook at him. "I just can't figure this one out."  
  
Tanker frowned at the neat, orderly rows of numbers on the page as his eyes lit on something odd.  
  
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked slowly.  
  
"Yeah; why?"  
  
"Because you added two and five as ten."  
  
She blinked.  
  
"I did?"  
  
"Uh...yeah. See?"  
  
She stood up, and then leaned over the table, peering curiously at her notebook. Then, as she found the small error, she dropped back into her chair with a sigh.  
  
"Sorry, Tanker. I'm not really helping you much today."  
  
"Sure you are," he assured her, frowning in concern. "But you look really wiped. What's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing," she replied quickly.  
  
He rolled his eyes.  
  
"Okay; how about the truth now?"  
  
She looked away uncomfortably.  
  
"That IS the truth. I just didn't sleep much."  
  
"Yeah, me neither," Tanker sighed. "I shouldn't have ragged on Sam so bad last night."  
  
"Did he call you today?"  
  
"I haven't been home," he reminded her mildly. "We've been here for the last three hours; since one-thirty."  
  
"Oh...right," she laughed self-consciously.  
  
He shook his head helplessly.  
  
"Are you sure you're okay to do this?"  
  
"Yes," she replied too quickly and fervently.  
  
Really, this was a far better alternative to the others open to her at the moment. Hanging about Malcolm's house, trying not to notice his glares in her direction, baleful and, she could have sworn, just a trace sad and concerned, was unthinkable. The library was, as it always was, soothing. And Tanker's company was far preferable to anyone else's. Although he had caught on that something was bothering her, he was aware enough of his own dislike of being nagged when out of sorts that he was willing to give her some space. Sam would have immediately noticed, as he had an annoying tendency to do, that something was wrong, and not let up until he had picked what it was out of her. Amp wouldn't have been quite so insistent, but would have shot her reproachful, concerned glances that were almost more effective than any amount of nagging.  
  
Tanker raised an eyebrow quizzically.  
  
"If you're sure. But...if you wanna talk about anything..."  
  
"I'll let you know," she assured him firmly.  
  
"Sure," he agreed with a half-smile, sliding her notebook back toward her and returning his attention to his own work.  
  
The resulting silence lasted for a total of ten seconds before Tanker threw down his pencil.  
  
"It ticks me off, you know? I mean, bailing on us to hang out with Jennifer on a Saturday is one thing, but cancelling practice to see her? My mom was fine with me being out, even though I'm still technically grounded for another week, but Mom and I both had to beg Dad to let me out. And then we didn't even practice! Sure doesn't feel like Sam's making more time for us."  
  
Sydney closed her textbook, marking her place with a pencil, and leaned forward over the table.  
  
"I know it feels that way," she said soothingly. "And I agree that this was a bad one to cancel, especially now. But you know Jennifer. She told him it was okay if he didn't want to go; she'd just take Michael Kitchener instead."  
  
Tanker laughed sarcastically.  
  
"God, sometimes I don't like her very much."  
  
"Oh, it's just that she knows where all of Sam's buttons are."  
  
"And she doesn't hesitate to use them," Tanker added.  
  
"Definitely not," Sydney agreed emphatically. "Oh, well. They're happy. And really, she didn't do anything that mean this time. She had a ticket to a concert and didn't want it to go to waste."  
  
"So? She could have told him she was taking, like, ANY girl she knows."  
  
"She probably just said it without thinking."  
  
Tanker stared at her in disbelief.  
  
"Okay, so I don't think so either," she admitted after a moment, resting her chin in her hands. "But come on! I mean, you know that he has to keep a lot of secrets from her, and she's not stupid. She's probably caught on that something's up. She doesn't want to lose her boyfriend, so she employs every trick she knows to keep him wanting her."  
  
"And as insecure with their relationship as she can make him," Tanker added with a snort, leaning back in his chair.  
  
Sydney looked thoughtful.  
  
"You think so? I don't think she tries to make him insecure...all the time," she added as Tanker quirked an eyebrow at her.  
  
"Yeah, well, she does. Sometimes I think he'd be better off if Jennifer broke up with him and just went out with, like, Malcolm."  
  
Had Tanker chanced to look up at that moment, he might have noticed his friend's suddenly stiffening posture and tightening jaw, both unconscious but definite. Striving for nonchalance, she shrugged.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"They're both manipulative," Tanker replied immediately.  
  
Sydney bit back a laugh.  
  
"Hardly something to build a relationship on. She'd just do to him what she does to Sam. And it would be worse, because she'd know she could do a lot better, and she'd use it against him."  
  
"So, like she does to Sam. But he'd deserve it, the little creep."  
  
And then, unreasonably, although she had spent the entire day repeating to herself that Malcolm was, indeed, a manipulative sneak with a taste for seeing people uncomfortable and unhappy, she felt a blaze of anger at her friend for saying as much.  
  
"Let's get back to work, alright?" she suggested coolly.  
  
Tanker blinked.  
  
"What did I say?"  
  
--------------------------------------------  
  
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"So, band practice tonight?" Sam asked, glancing hopefully around the cafeteria table. "Like, for real this time?"  
  
Tanker looked up briefly from his last minute cramming for the math test looming forebodingly before him, casting its shadows of blackest evil over what could have been a pleasant and carefree lunch hour.  
  
"You think you can manage to show up this time, Romeo?"  
  
"Y'know, I thought this kinda looked like Athens," Amp noted thoughtfully, gazing idly about the room.  
  
"Don't you mean Verona, Amp?" Sydney asked, much against her better judgement.  
  
Amp frowned.  
  
"Why? What's in Verona?"  
  
Sydney buried her head in her hands in despair.  
  
"Just...never mind, Amp."  
  
Amp's frown deepened at her exasperated expression, and he uttered a nearly inaudible sigh as Sam, Tanker, and Sydney went back to their discussion on this band rehearsal and why it was crucial that they all be there. He would be well and truly glad when his three closest friends - who he loved dearly, but just now found himself wanting to shake until their teeth rattled - got over whatever was making them all so snippy with each other, and with him. A wise young man in his own right, Amp had a strong feeling that much of the tension that they all felt but none spoke of stemmed from whatever it was that had been making Sydney act so strangely for the past two or so weeks.  
  
Certainly, the effects of Tanker's car crash were weighing on everyone as well, although this had faded somewhat as the drummer's mother had proved unable to hold to the punishment for a month of strict grounding. It helped somewhat that they no longer had to go over and beg as a unit for Tanker to be allowed out of the house for an evening, but they had all been shaken by it. Was the mysterious creator of the viruses by any chance beginning to suspect who they were, and directly attack them in potentially lethal ways rather than simply annoying ones?  
  
Not always, Amp chuckled silently, recalling Sydney's tale of the little mechanical dog several days previous.  
  
This mirth was short-lived as he tuned in to the conversation at the table long enough to hear Sam say something to Tanker in a tense, tightly controlled voice, and Tanker shoot back an angry reply. He made a move to intercede, but was beaten to it as Syd pleaded wearily with the young men to stop.  
  
Yeah.  
  
He definitely hoped that something would change soon.  
  
--------------------------------------------  
  
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The hallway bustled with life, energy, and the jubilation of another evening's freedom looming on the horizon for the several hundreds of young people currently inflicting unintentional injuries upon one another in their effort to be the first to the doors.  
  
Wincing as one particularly piercing, shrill laugh, vaguely resembling a scream, of one girl reminded her head that it was supposed to be relentlessly pounding right now, Sydney shoved an armload of books into her open locker and withdrew several others, wondering at the back of her mind how exactly either she or her head could have forgotten something so important - and obvious, she added ruefully, praying silently for a sudden rain of Advil.  
  
Shaking her head ruefully as she caught the tail end of a conversation, involving much whooping and hollering, of a band of young men about the 'awesome party' that their weekend had apparently held, she thanked the powers that be most fervently that Sam, Tanker and Amp tended to have a much more toned-down sense of fun. It was only on the very rare occasion that a gathering with the four of them, or even with a larger group, in Sam's basement, got noisy enough to draw the local law enforcement - or worse by far, an angry Mrs. Collins from upstairs. Certainly, they - she included - had as much of a fondness for fun as anyone else, and their band practices were never what could be deemed 'quiet,' but didn't seem to hold to the universal truth that one must be as loud as humanly possible in order to have a good time.  
  
Particularly today. Although, considering the moods that the four had been in earlier that day, Sydney was fairly certain that it would be quiet in Sam's basement that evening. And, she was equally willing to bet, the fun would be all but missing.  
  
Yes, very quiet indeed.  
  
Too quiet, in the uncomfortable silence of four people on less than ideal terms with one another.  
  
"I hope Amp's still speaking to me," she mused wistfully. Neither Sam nor Tanker would have taken her very obvious irritation earlier to heart, but years of friendship with Amp had taught her that, for someone who seemed so oblivious to so much, so much of the time, he was surprisingly sensitive to some things.  
  
With a sigh, she slammed her locker shut, reflecting that as soon as they were done practising, she would launch into some task or other on Sam's computer, thus avoiding Malcolm's house for a time and prolonging having to deal with yet another person who seemed to be in a terminally bad mood.  
  
"Not that him being in a bad mood is anything new," she reminded herself with a forced laugh.  
  
Thus, when turning away from her locker to leave brought her face-to-face with a young man, the subject of her previous comment, mere inches from her, leaning against the locker next to hers with an expression of barely concealed irritation, a shriek of surprise escaped her before she could stifle it.  
  
"Oh, hey, Malcolm," she laughed a little nervously.  
  
"I wondered how long you'd be in there," he grumbled. "I assume you'll be taking home the entire student library and half of the public library again, Yomiko?"  
  
Gripping the straps of her book bag tightly, she choked over the effort to keep back an angry response.  
  
'Everyone's already mad at you,' she told herself piteously and untruthfully. 'Including Malcolm. Why make it worse? And who knows? Maybe he's in a good mood right now. An obscure anime reference is the closest thing to a joke I've heard from him in a long time.'  
  
She turned to him.  
  
"Did you need something?" she asked with a sweet smile.  
  
Too sweet, Malcolm decided, wondering uneasily why it made him think of an adorably cuddly kitten concealing claws the size of daggers, waiting for the perfect opportunity to cause untold flesh wounds. Should he be running right about now? God knew, she'd already shown her violent streak clearly enough. At that thought, he absently rubbed the fading bruise, shaped like a small fist, directly over his solar plexus. Damn her...now, what had wanted to talk to her about?  
  
As he crossed his arms, something jingled within his shirt pocket.  
  
"Oh, right. You forgot your key," he informed her with a cold glare, withdrawing the small object from his pocket and dangling it in front of her.  
  
She snatched it.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Right," he sighed. "I'll see you later, then?"  
  
"Yeah," she agreed. "Right after band practice."  
  
Without replying, he pushed past her and started down the hall, muttering as he went something that she barely managed to identify as 'people with no talent shouldn't waste their time in bands with no talent.'  
  
"Jerk," she muttered, scowling after him. "Now I'm sorry I wasted any time feeling guilty about going home for stuff tonight."  
  
Ignoring the curious, vaguely amused stares of those students who had chosen to observe this exchange between a well known antisocial loner and a girl well known for being best friends with his mortal enemy, as well as to snicker knowingly over the decided implications of his giving her a key when combined with the obvious undercurrent of tension between them, she turned and stalked the other way down the hall.  
  
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"...And with such a sway to hold over the greater world powers, the planet will fall easily into my control!"  
  
Malcolm winced slightly as the triumphant crescendo in the program's voice made his speakers crackle rather ominously.  
  
"Right, Kiley," he sighed absently, glancing surreptitiously at the clock in the corner of the computer monitor standing aside the one displaying Kilokhan's image. "Because, of course, none of your plans have ever gone wrong."  
  
"Silence, meat-thing!" Kilokhan snapped loudly, setting the speakers crackling once more. "If it were not for the utter uselessness of that...fleshy thing you call your brain, the planet would long since have been mine to control."  
  
"And if you blow out my speakers, you're tapping into a bank to get me money to buy new ones," Malcolm warned, glaring darkly at the screen.  
  
"It is not for you to make demands of Kilokhan!"  
  
"Whatever you say," the dark-haired boy shrugged, glancing less subtly at the clock. "Where IS she?" he muttered, annoyed. "Even Collins wouldn't keep his little posse over there this late on a school night."  
  
"Your house-guest again?" Kilokhan asked boredly.  
  
Malcolm simply crossed his arms defensively, his expression sullen and defiant.  
  
"Of what consequence is it to you if she does not return?" The tone implied a shrug.  
  
His shoulders lifted slightly.  
  
"Well, then-" Kilokhan began as Malcolm shoved abruptly out of his chair. "Where are you going, meat-thing?" he asked wearily  
  
"I'm going to check her room. Maybe I didn't hear her come in."  
  
"In the past ten minutes, since the last time you checked, I do not compute how it is logically possible that you missed her," Kilokhan grumbled, irritation clear in his tone. "Particularly given that you have not been listening to a word I have been saying, choosing instead to keep your full attention on waiting for your houseguest to return, when I might add, you wished to eliminate her merely days ago!"  
  
Malcolm blinked, quite startled, as Kilokhan's stream of words grew gradually in volume to end with an angry bellow.  
  
"Actually, that was your idea. I'll be right back."  
  
With that, he pushed the chair back in at the computer desk and bolted from the closet, rubbing his eyes as they adjusted gradually to the light in his room.  
  
Alone in the small, dark, now deserted room, Kilokhan sighed.  
  
"Something must be done about this."  
  
-----------------------------------------------  
  
Malcolm, meanwhile, had concluded after first tapping with a politeness that would have startled many who knew him, then knocking, and finally pounding on the door of her room - the guest room, he corrected himself sharply - that she wasn't in there.  
  
"Might as well check the rest of the house," he muttered noncommittally, despite the unfamiliar sensation of concern for another, rapidly becoming uncomfortably familiar as of late, creeping over him and leaving a sour taste on his tongue.  
  
The kitchen.  
  
"I don't know why I'm even doing this. Kilokhan's right. Why AM I worrying?"  
  
The living room.  
  
"It's not any of MY concern if she's been dumb enough to go home and get herself beaten up."  
  
The bathroom after a decent warning period of ten seconds before entering.  
  
"What were her parents thinking, anyway, to leave their daughter with some guy?"  
  
His room, in quite a show of desperation.  
  
"What was SHE thinking, talking about going home?"  
  
The attic, although he admitted sullenly to himself as he climbed the stairs that this was even more of a stretch than his room.  
  
"Maybe she didn't go home..."  
  
'Not likely,' a voice in the back of his mind snorted.  
  
"Oh, come on. Why would she?"  
  
'Maybe she did it to worry you,' it replied mildly as he dropped exhaustedly to sit on the steps.  
  
"She's a little smarter than that," he scoffed silently, although not with the certainty that he should have.  
  
'Fine, then,' the voice replied, clearly not convinced. 'Think what you want.'  
  
"You're trying to imply that she acted like some hysterical female and did it because of what I said to her earlier, just to be contrary, aren't you?" he demanded angrily.  
  
'Girls have done weirder.'  
  
"She wouldn't purposely put herself in danger, just to show me. You just don't know anything about women."  
  
'I AM you. YOU don't know anything about women, and that's why you're feeling so guilty right now.'  
  
He blinked, pondering this statement for a moment, and the next, sighed in defeat.  
  
"Damn. So I guess you know I'm going to look for her, don't you?"  
  
"...Yeah."  
  
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End Notes: Hee! Another chapter! At last! And it looks like the story just got a bit longer. Not only are the chapters gradually getting longer, but the plot itself recently extended. From here, I estimate that this story could end up being about twenty chapters. Thus, I really hope you're still enjoying it, and don't mind a rather long haul. If there are any problems that you can see, please let me know. Really. I'll be more than glad to fix them. Any comments are good, so long as they're coherent and don't utilize the f-word with greater frequency than the South Park movie...particularly the 'Uncle F-er' song. ^_^;  
  
Particular areas that I could use feedback: is the interaction between the four friends realistic? All the bickering right now isn't typical, I know, aside from those few episodes when friendships were strained, but this will change very soon. Also, I kind of feel like I was pushing the limits of strict characterization a little with Amp, and if anyone can pinpoint exactly where the characterization deviated from the show, I'd be glad for the enlightenment.  
  
Anyway, another think I'd like to ask for opinions on is the Jennifer- issue. This is kind of always what I've gotten from her: a little manipulative, and very fond of knowing that she has Sam wrapped around her finger.  
  
So, these or any other issues: any thoughts?  
  
Thanks. ^_^  
  
And I do apologize endlessly for the obscure 'Read or Die' reference. ^_^;;; It really was irresistible. But that'll be the last one I'll do.  
  
Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to glance over my little creative efforts. See you next chapter! [Waves cheerily] 


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

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   "Roadkill Café," Sam chirped merrily into the phone. "You kill 'em, we grill 'em!"

   "Sam Collins," a voice exclaimed on the other end, both exasperated and amused.

   "Oh, hey, Jen," the sandy-haired youth greeted fondly. "What's up?"

   "Not much. I just wanted to say hi," she admitted shyly. "So, how was band practice?"

Sam hesitated. 

   "Well...we got a lot done," he finally admitted cautiously. True enough. With most of the band not speaking to each other, there had been remarkably few distractions. 

   "Oh, good. Sam," Jennifer began slowly, "can you apologize to Tanker and Sydney and Amp for me? I know you had something on for Saturday, and I know he's mad at both of us. I don't really like causing problems between you and your friends, so – "

   "It's no big deal, Jen," Sam interjected briskly. "They understand."

   "I don't know...Tanker spent an awful lot of history class today glaring at you. And at me."

Sam sighed, both furious with his long-time friend for dragging Jennifer into this, and disgusted with himself for so obviously contradicting his promise of a few months ago to set aside more time for his friends.

   "Well...I'll tell him what you said," he promised.

   "Good," she said warmly. "Thanks."

   "So," Sam began suggestively, "was that the ONLY reason you called? You just couldn't stand going a whole night without talking to me, right?"

   "Sam!"

Sam blinked, and then frowned. He could have sworn that Jennifer's exasperated exclamation had been joined by another.

   "Hold on a sec, okay, Jen?"

Holding the phone away from his ear, he listened carefully, waiting for the shout to repeat itself. Sure enough...

   "Oh, big brother!"

Ah. Elizabeth.

   "What's up, squirt?" he called toward the laundry chute after excusing himself for a few more seconds from the phone.

   "Mom says there's someone at the door askin' for you!"

Sam frowned.

   "Did she say who it was?"

   "No, but I saw him. A really pasty guy, all in black. I think I dropped a mousetrap on his face once," the little girl finished with a giggle.

   "Malcolm?" Sam theorized, his tone registering disbelief. "No way!" He snatched up the phone. "Jen, Elizabeth says someone who sounds a lot like Malcolm is here to talk to me."

   "You'd better go check, Sam," she suggested, sounding equally mystified. "I'll wait here."

   "Sure," the sandy-haired youth agreed, setting the phone down carefully and then bounding up the stairs.

   "Hurry back," he faintly heard her call through the receiver as he disappeared around the corner.

-------------------------------------------

   "Why do we always get interrupted? Never fails. Every time we try to have a little time to ourselves – even over the PHONE! – we get interrupted. Damn it!" Sam muttered bitterly to himself as he strode through the kitchen. Then, as he reached the front door, he sighed. The unexpected visitor was, indeed, Malcolm Frink. 'I wonder what his diabolical plan to get Jennifer from me is today,' he thought sourly.

   "Collins!" Malcolm began sharply before Sam could say a word. "What's Sydney's address?"

Sam blinked. 

   "Wh-what?"

   "You heard me, Sam. I need Sydney's address. I have to go over there make sure she's alright, and I don't have her address."

   "Whoa, whoa, calm down, Malcolm," Sam admonished, waving back his ever-watchful mother, who had started forward at the implication that one of her son's closest friends might be in some danger. "What's this all about? Why do you need to see her?"

   "If you give me her address now, I'll tell you tomorrow," he bargained. "Or some other time. Or she will. Whatever."

   "No way, man. You tell me why you need to find her, and then I tell you her address."

   "Sam!" Mrs. Collins called sharply. "It sounds like this is an emergency, so give the boy the address, would you?"

   "Okay," he agreed reluctantly, still watching Malcolm with an eye that made clear his mistrust as he hurried into the kitchen for a piece of paper. "It isn't too far from here," he called, rummaging through the Official Collins Family Junk Drawer. "Only a couple minutes."

   "Great," Malcolm said absently, fidgeting uncomfortably. It suddenly occurred to him that he would look awfully foolish if it turned out that there was nothing wrong, and she'd simply been at the library later than usual...

   "Here it is," Sam announced, startling him.

   "Thanks," he said brusquely, accepting the scrap of paper.

   "Think you'll be alright to find it?"

   "Yes, I'll be fine."

   "'Cause I could come with you, if you want..."

   "No need, Sam. I'll see you later."

   "Yeah, see you, Malcolm," Sam repeated with a small smile as he closed the door.      

   "Whew...that was strange. Well, I'm sure Syd'll be fine. Now, to get back to the phone before Elizabeth decides that she has to keep Jen entertained while I'm gone..."

------------------------------------------------

Trembling more with fury than with pain, Sydney glared her reflection in the mirror. A faint bruise was already forming over one cheek.

   'At least it's not as bad this time,' she reflected grimly, dabbing carefully at her lip, cut and bleeding from a punch that had forced it back against her teeth with enough force to break the skin, with a washcloth soaked in cool water. 'This time, I was ready to dodge.' Ignoring the pain flaring through the shoulder that she had landed on in an effort to dodge away from Ray, she scowled more darkly at her reflection. 'I hope he crashes his car into a brick wall and – well, no, I don't. But I am going to go to the police tomorrow and – "

The thought was cut off abruptly by the sound of the front door opening and footsteps pounding with nearly frantic speed around the floor below.

What was going on?

Had Ray come back, sober and finally concerned? Not likely, but who else could it be?

Then, as the thought hit her that Ray probably hadn't worried about locking the door, she tensed and glanced about the bathroom, searching for a suitable weapon. 

   "A plunger," she murmured, rolling her eyes. "I'm sure whoever's down there will flee in terror once they see the wrath and destruction that is Sydney and her Plunger of Doom™."

Ah, well. It was the best she could manage under such short notice.

Meanwhile, the mysterious intruder had apparently noticed the bathroom light on, and the sound of footsteps grew rapidly nearer. Gripping the handle of the plunger, ignoring the jolt of pain that this simple act sent through her shoulder, and setting her face into a menacing glare, she edged her way out of the bathroom. 

As she rounded the corner into the hallway, her eyes lit on a figure, not much taller than she, garbed in dark colours.

   'Wrong day to mess with me, whoever you are, you little punk,' she thought briefly and fiercely, swinging the impromptu weapon as hard as she could.

With an exclamation of surprise and pain, the intruder leapt back, and Sydney started forward, letting the plunger drop to the carpet with a thud as the longish dark hair, dark eyes, and expression, outraged, but with concern lurking behind it, all became familiar.

   "Malcolm?" she groaned, dismayed.

   "Yeah," he replied, rubbing the side of his head and glaring at her. "This how you greet all your visitors?"

   "Well, excuse me!" she exclaimed, glaring back at him with equal venom. "You didn't exactly warn me that you were coming!"

   "Sorry," he sighed. 

   "No problem," she replied, a little dully now that adrenaline was ebbing and with it pain returning. She fell back against the wall, drawing in a sharp breath as the pain in her shoulder flared again.

   "Are you okay?" he demanded, feeling slightly sick at the new bruise that was already discolouring over her cheek, and the trickle of blood seeping from her lip.

   "Yeah, I'm fine," she assured him.

He withdrew a Kleenex from his pocket and, holding her chin gently, dabbed at the blood.

   "I knew this would happen," he murmured after a moment, voice shaking slightly.

   "Just don't say 'I told you so,'" she warned, catching his wrist and moving his hand away, colouring slightly. This sudden swing from his normal actions towards her, to such a carelessly intimate gesture was oddly unnerving. "If you do, we might have matching bruises."

He quirked an eyebrow at her.

   "We already might. You handle a plunger reasonably well."

   "Yeah, well..." Her words trailed off, and she glanced at him briefly as he leaned against the wall next to her. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

Malcolm rolled his eyes.

   "What do you think I'm doing here? I came to make sure you were all right, after I figured out that you'd come home like an idiot."

   "Well, I'm fine, so you can stop playing the misguided hero and – "

   "Oh, shut up! You have a serious problem with the concept of gratitude. Do you know that?"

She shoved off of the wall, eyes narrowing and flashing such fire that Malcolm instinctively kicked the plunger further away from her.

   "You're the one who can't seem to get it through his head that I don't need a lecture right now!"

   "I guess I should know that you don't listen to them, anyway."

   "Hey, wait a second – "

   "No, just shut up, Sydney," he requested wearily. "Get whatever you came to get, and let's go."

She fixed him with a gaze that was less angry than thoughtful, and for a moment, looked as though she wanted to say more. Finally, though, she turned on her heel and stalked into a room a few doors down, presumably her own room. 

Fighting the urge to go with her and see what her bedroom looked like, he crossed his arms and reflected that if there were any truth to such a flaky concept, he deserved some very, very good karmic payback for all of this. 

-----------------------------------------------

   "So, what happened?" he demanded once they had both settled into the car.

   "You're not going to start yelling at me again if I tell you, are you?" she asked warily.

He turned to her, the sound of fabric against the upholstery impossibly loud in the sudden oppressive silence.

   "No," he finally replied flatly. 

   "Well, okay then. Actually, it's almost kind of funny," she began with a ghost of a laugh.

   "I doubt it," he muttered, shooting her a dark look that clearly demanded she stop making light of the situation.

   "Anyway, when I got to the house at about nine, after practice, there was no one home. So I got my stuff together, checked the phone messages..." Here, she trailed off, fiddling absently with her seat belt and looking decidedly glum.

   "What?" he prodded.

   "Mom and Dad met up with some old friends, and they're staying over an extra two weeks to visit them."

   "Oh, wonderful," he sighed, rolling his eyes.

   "If you want me to find-"

   "Don't finish that," he commanded.

   "Fine, fine," she sighed. "I was just wondering."

   "No. I don't want you to go somewhere else. Now, go on. Why didn't you leave when you got everything you needed?"

   "Now, this is the funny part. When I got to my room, it was a huge disaster. I kind of tore it apart getting my things together as quickly as possible when I left, and I never got around to cleaning it when I came back."

   "Understandable."

   "But I just kept thinking about coming home to a mess like that, and suddenly it seemed like a really good idea to clean up."

   "Oh, hell," he sighed, glaring unseeingly out the front window.

   "Don't get mad," she warned sharply.

He rolled his eyes impatiently.

   "For God's sake, I'm not mad at you!"

   "You sound pretty mad."

   "That's because one of my friends – my friend, if you want the truth – just got hurt by a crazy drunk bastard, and it's not sitting very well with me to see her in pain," he shot back, turning away from her to stare out the window.

She stopped still, blinking back a sudden and absurd rush of tears as a fresh wave of guilt swept over her. Feeling partly wretched and partly furious with him because of it, she continued.

   "Um, yeah. So Ray came home while I was cleaning, ranting about me getting the cops on him. Apparently, he got pulled over on the way home the other night – no wonder why, with him reeking of alcohol – and he thought I had something to do with it. I guess he thought I broke my promise and went to them. And it wasn't really surprising when he didn't believe that I hadn't."

Malcolm swore under his breath. 

   "Did you expect a drunk man who had plenty of time to build up a good lather of rage to believe you?"

   "Well-"

   "Of course he wouldn't. He's crazy." 

   "I don't think he's crazy; I think he's got a problem that a lot of people have. I hate him, but I still wish he didn't have to go through this."

   "Don't even think about it," he said, glaring at her.

   "About what?" she asked, honestly bewildered.

   "Whatever stupid idea I know is running through your head right now about trying to convince him to get help."

   "No," she said softly. "I'm not."

   "Good. Now, let's go. I want to get you to emergency before it closes."

She smiled indulgently.

   "Malcolm, emergency doesn't close – wait a second. Why are you taking me to emergency?"

   "Why do you think? I want to make sure you're not hurt worse than you think you are."

   "Don't be stupid," she shot at him, immediately alarmed. Really, wasn't an emergency room a bit of overkill? And if she went, they would certainly call her parents right away. She continued with a slightly forced laugh. "I'd know if something was really wrong, wouldn't I?"

   "But – "

   "My cheek is just a little bruised. And my shoulder hurts a bit, but it's nothing big. I just wrenched it a little when I fell," she assured him, lifting her shoulder slightly to indicate it, and biting back a grimace of pain. "I've had worse from playing football with Sam and Tanker."

He watched her carefully for a moment.

   "Fine," he shrugged. "But I want to take a look at it when we get home."

And with that, he turned the key, and the car started from the darkened street.

----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------

End Notes: Okay; I swear, we are drawing near to some more of the actual Syber-Squad based plot. The Ray-plot is heavily involved with it, and I just need one more chapter to build up. For now, I hope you can bear with the hurt/comfort crap that the tale seems hopelessly mired in right now. It will look up, that I swear.

Of course, it occurs to me at this point that the chances that anyone aside from my dear and loving Bezo is still reading this are slim to none. I suppose a true artist wouldn't care. But I'm not a true artist! I want readers! [Sob] ^_^


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

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It wasn't until Malcolm had parked the car in front of his house, forced to wedge the thankfully tiny vehicle between a massive rusted immobile lump of a pick-up permanently stationed there for some reason and a bright blue Dodge Viper that came and went, its license plate proudly bearing the word, "KICKASS", making him cringe at the sheer idiocy of the human race as it always did, that he began to feel a faint inkling of the sense that he had overreacted. Not just in yelling at the girl currently leaning wearily against the window, her cheek pressed to the cool glass, but in rushing to the home of his mortal enemy and one of her best friends to demand where she could be found.

By the time he climbed from the driver's seat and locked up, the feeling had intensified. Even more so as he started up the walk, glancing over his shoulder and then stopping and waiting impatiently, arms crossed and weight shifted to one foot, for her to follow when it became apparent that she had fallen behind.

   "You might want to call Sam and tell him you're okay before his mother storms your house," he told her abruptly as he fumbled in the darkness for the house key.

She frowned.

   "Why?"

Malcolm sighed inwardly and rolled his eyes less inwardly.

   "Because she was around when I was asking Sam for your address."

Flipping a lock of hair from her eye, she looked at him strangely, her gaze following him as he stepped into the house. All she said, though, was,

   "Oh."

   "So, go, then," he suggested impatiently, the sensation growing stronger. This was not a girl who needed things spelled out for her when she wanted to figure something out. From her expression when he had turned around quickly enough that she hadn't been able to look away in time, she was already reading into his words. Leaping to wild conclusions based on the miniscule clues he had given her of Sam's mother having a reason to storm her house based on his demeanour when he had inquired as to her whereabouts, not to mention his suggestion that she should let Sam know that she was safe. And, infuriatingly, being right in her wild conclusions!

   'That's the last thing I need,' he thought resentfully, deliberately not giving words to this last part about her tendency to be right, and glaring after her as she made her way quickly into the kitchen, toward the phone. 'Her thinking that I like her just because I was worried about her.'

Then, shaking his head, he started toward the stairs. As he climbed slowly, he pondered in the back of his mind the best way to go about making an ice pack and clean out cuts with nothing even remotely resembling a first aid kit in the house.

---------------------------------------

   "Busy," Sydney murmured, hanging the receiver back up on the wall next to the fridge with a click. "I'll bet the idiot's on the phone with Jennifer again." She shook her head, the faint grin pulling at the corners of her mouth belying her harsh words. "I'm going to kill him tomorrow if his mother does storm my house because I couldn't get hold of him to tell him I'm okay." Then, her grin widening and adopting a slightly mischievous edge, she continued. "Although, I'd have to wait until _after_ I explained that me shacking up with Malcolm for the last three weeks – wow, three weeks – isn't how it looks."

At the thought of the doubtlessly horrified expression that would be Malcolm's if she voiced this scenario to him, she broke into a fit of giggles.

   "What's so funny?" a voice demanded from the door, sullen and just a wee bit puzzled.

   "Nothing," she replied as mildly as she could, leaning against the wall to catch her breath.

   "I'm sure I don't want to know anyway," he said wearily. "So, did you call him?"

   "Sam?"

   "No," Malcolm shot back. "Freddy Krueger." 

   "Yeah, I called Freddy," she grinned, his sarcasm putting her suddenly and unexpectedly in the mood to play. "He didn't really say much – just sort of snarled. Kind of like you used to when I said hi to you in the hallways."

   "Great," he huffed, rolling his eyes and fighting back the urge to smile. "And now what about Sam?"

Her grin faded.

   "The line was busy. Malcolm, do you really think there's a chance that Sam's mother will call my house?"

Malcolm shrugged uneasily. The _last_ last thing he needed, he reflected with an inward groan, was some of her friends' parents finding out that she was, for all intents and purposes, living in sin with a teenage boy. Although word of it could make him quite a hero at school, that would only be until one of the aforementioned friends' parents informed _her_ parents, resulting in her father showing up with a revolver and making him quite irreversibly dead.

   'If I'm going to die as a direct result of this, I want to justify all these parents' fears first,' he thought indignantly, the mental image of her state of undress while the subject for his latest art project floating through his head. 

Meanwhile, she had picked up the phone and dialled again, and was setting it down, looking rather aggravated.

   "Still busy," she informed him.

   "Then phone one of the other two," he snapped, more certain than ever that he had utterly overreacted, doing nothing to improve his mood.

Sydney frowned, confused. _The other two...the other two..._

   "Tanker and Amp?" she finally asked.

He nodded impatiently.

   "And don't go far after that. I still want to take a look myself and make sure you're alright."

   "Uh...sure," she murmured more to herself than to him, as the second he had delivered this command, he turned abruptly on his heel and hurried from the kitchen.

Watching him in bewilderment, she picked up the phone and tried again.

Seven seconds later, Sydney set the phone back on the wall and leaned against the wall with a gusty sigh.

   "Tanker too? Geez...is everyone spending tonight on the phone? One more try...now, was it Monday nights or Tuesday nights that Amp's family doesn't answer the phone?"

Tuesday, obviously, she reflected as a familiar voice on the other end of the phone greeted her after two rings.

   "Hey, Amp," she said brightly, fiddling absently with the phone cord.

   "Hi, Sydney," Amp replied, sounding quite mystified at a phone call this late from someone who tended to make a rather big deal about getting a decent amount of sleep each night. "What's – urk!"

This last, rather absurd syllable grew distant, and was followed by some indistinct exclamation from Amp. An angry female voice – vaguely familiar, Sydney noted curiously – replied something equally indistinct. The next moment...

   "Sydney! Where the hell are you?"

   "Oh, hi, Yoli," Sydney greeted the other girl, suppressing a groan as the owner of the voice became apparent.

   "Hi, yourself, Syd. Where the hell are you?" Yoli demanded again. 

   "Um...why?"

   "Well, 'cause Jen's been calling your house for the last fifteen minutes, for one thing," Yoli replied sarcastically.

   "Oh. I'm not home right now," Sydney informed Yoli, stalling desperately for enough time to think up a plausible sounding lie.

   "Yeah, we noticed. So, where are you?"

   "I'm...at my grandma's house," she blurted out, mentally smacking herself as Malcolm, who had just come in from the living room and begun to wrap some ice cubes in a baggie, raised one eyebrow and watched her oddly.

    "Your grandma's," Yoli repeated flatly.

   "Yup!"

A pause.

   "Any reason why?"

   "Well...Granny's been lonely since she moved here, and when I came around earlier to say hi, she kind of insisted that I stay," Sydney replied with a laugh she was ghastly afraid verged on hysterical.

At this point, she caught Malcolm's eye and looked quickly away as it became completely obvious from the odd twitching at the corner of the boy's mouth that he was fighting laughter.

   "Whatever you say, Syd," Yoli was meanwhile continuing. "But you'd better call Sam and tell him you're okay. And Jen. And Tanker." Then, after pausing for a moment, Yoli's voice took on a curious edge. "And Malcolm, for that matter. Sam said he was by earlier looking for you."

   "Oh, weird," Sydney commented, praying that she sounded more sincere than she felt. "Yeah, I'll call everyone. So...good-night, I guess. I'd better get going. Oh, and tell Amp 'bye' for me," she concluded slyly, suddenly dying to know what the principal's daughter was doing at the young man's house this late at night.

   "Sure," Yoli grumbled, sounding just a wee bit sheepish. "Bye."

Shaking her head, Sydney hung up the phone and turned around slowly to find Malcolm watching her, arms crossed, ice pack in one hand, posture and expression impatient. 

   "Are you finished?"

   "I guess," she replied doubtfully. "Word will get to Sam and Tanker somehow that I'm alright, won't it? And even if Mrs. Collins goes over there, I've got an excuse for not being home."

   "Wonderful. Now, sit down and let me take a look at that," he commanded, gesturing to her shoulder.

   "I really don't think that's necessary," she said, moving to sit at the table nonetheless. "It's probably just bruised a little."

   "Just sit still," he said wearily, kneeling next to her and putting a finger to her chin and turning her head gently to face him.

   "What's that?" she demanded, pulling back as he raised the ice pack.

He rolled his eyes.

   "These blocks of frozen water are called ice. When you have a lot of them, you have a pack. An ice pack."

   "I can do it," she informed him, snatching the baggie, wrapped in a tea towel, from him and holding it to her cheek.

   "Fine," he agreed indifferently, climbing to his feet and moving around behind the chair.

   "Now what are you doing?" she asked again, turning to watch him as he stared down at her, helplessly baffled, and then reached hesitantly toward her.

   "What do you think? I'm checking your shoulder."

Smothering a smile, she turned around again and reached for the hem of her shirt.

Now it was his turn to pull back, startled.

   "What are you doing?"

   "What do you think?" she mimicked teasingly. "You can't check my shoulder through a shirt."

She tugged the shirt up over her head, folded it neatly, and set it on the table in front of her. When, after a moment, she felt no evidence that he was proceeding as planned with his plan to check her shoulder, she glanced at him over her shoulder...

...and nearly choked on a peal of laughter at his expression, even more helplessly baffled than before, cheeks slightly red, as he made sure to look anywhere in the kitchen but at her.

   "Are you okay?"

   "Yeah," he grumbled, giving his head a quick shake and reminding himself that he had spent the entire afternoon merely a few days ago not only seeing, but sketching, much more of her than this. Not only that, but he was in control of this situation and intended to stay that way. Even so, he felt uncomfortably that the curve between her neck and shoulder had no business being anywhere near as fascinating as it was, and the urge to do what he could to make her turn all the way around wasn't entirely safe. "Just turn around and hold still."

   "Sure," she shrugged, and then winced as the motion sent a sharp jolt of pain through her arm. "That was dumb, wasn't it?"

His only reply was to roll his eyes yet again, and to slide the stretchy white strap down her arm and place one hand carefully on her shoulder.

   "Does that hurt?" he asked brusquely, pressing in.

   "No."

He moved his hand slightly to the left.

   "How about there?" 

   "A little," she replied, voice slightly strained.

   "It's a bit red, and a bit swollen," he finally announced. "You're right; you'll have some bruises, but it's probably fine."

She pushed her chair out from the table and stood up.

   "Great," she said with a small smile. "And thanks."

   "Sure," he muttered, looking away quickly, and then turning and starting from the room even more quickly once it occurred to him that this would be a more effective way to solve his problem.

Biting back a giggle, she shook her head with a fond smile and watched him scurry away.

   "Man...and _he_ thought _I_ was fun to mess with!"

-------------------------------------------

   "This isn't working," Malcolm muttered to himself a little more than an hour later, shutting his calculus textbook with a slam and hurling his notebook across the room.

Then he rolled his eyes in annoyance as the soft sounds from the room over came to a dead halt, its occupant obviously wondering what was going on. The room's occupant had been the source of Malcolm's distraction in the first place, though he was loath to admit it in so many words. It seemed that Sydney was something of a psychic, and knew just when he had managed to get back to work with something resembling decent focus. Then she would resume her activities, wandering around, doing whatever mysterious and mystical rites it was that girls did before going to sleep, humming softly to herself as she did so.

The most distracting by far, however, was the soft, but still audible sound of someone tossing and turning in bed that had followed all the other sounds. Obviously, she wasn't able to sleep. Were her injuries bothering her that much?

Defiantly, Malcolm slid out of his desk chair, crossed the room, and retrieved his notebook. What was it to him if they were? She wasn't in any danger; why should he care if she was comfortable or not? 

He sat down at his desk and picked up his pencil again.

Somewhere between two and two-and-a-half minutes later, the calculus textbook sat once again closed, with a notebook and a pencil tucked into it, and the desk chair stood empty and the door to the bedroom stood open.

--------------------------------------------

   "This isn't working," Sydney reflected with a pained groan as she turned over on her side, hugged her pillow, and regretted both immediately. "I wish I'd thought to ask where he keeps his painkillers."

She was just about to tell herself sternly to go to sleep before she made school tomorrow a total impossibility, when a soft knock at the door eliminated the immediate need to go to sleep. Tossing the covers back and frowning in puzzlement, she climbed stiffly from the bed and padded across the carpet to the door.

   "Um...hi," she greeted uncertainly, trying to decide if her hesitation to let him see her pyjamas was silly or not. 

   "Hi," Malcolm returned with a small, slightly forced smile, as though he had been long out of the practice of smiling out of simple politeness. "I thought I heard you still up. Can't sleep?"

   "Yeah," she said with a rueful smile.

   "You want this?"

She looked down at the object he held out. A heating pad. Why not? It might help a little.

   "Thanks," she said, reaching for it. 

Then, as a thought hit her, she stopped abruptly. Although the last few hours had all but forgotten his involvement with Kilokhan, the sight of the plug dangling from the square of fabric and vinyl reminded her of the perils of accepting such an object from him. Who knew what he might have done to it first?

   "Um, on second thought, no thanks," she laughed nervously, unconsciously fiddling with the collar of her blue and grey plaid pyjama shirt. "I just remembered something I read about the hazards of sleeping with a heating pad turned on. You wouldn't believe the burns some of those people ended up with!  But I'll have to tell you about it tomorrow, cause, y'know, it's late. Bye!"

With that, she shut the door quickly, nearly catching the nose of a very bewildered Malcolm, a heating pad clutched in one hand.

   "Women," he sighed, starting back to his room and reflecting that her sleepwear was something of a disappointment. He'd been having fun imagining the shy, sweet bookworm sleeping in something in a jewel tone, and silky or lacy, but always low-cut and just long enough to cover what ought to be covered. Something that would look good on the floor, too.

-----------------------------------

   "Great. Once again, I've probably got him thinking I'm nuts," Sydney grumbled to herself, climbing under the quilts and blankets. 

Then, deciding that sleep would be an impossibility for a while yet, she picked up a book from the bedside table, opened it, set the bookmark back on the bedside table, and began to read...and stifled a massive yawn.

Five minutes later, the book sat, closed, with the marker two pages from where it had started out, and Sydney reached for the lamp.

   "I must be in bad shape," she said, shaking her head. "I can't remember the last time astrophysics put me to sleep!"

And so, flopping back onto the pillows and letting out an exhausted sigh, she fell quickly into an uneasy sleep, plagued by nightmares of being chased through the halls of the school, which oddly resembled the digital world for some reason, by Ray and the principal riding in a police car, Kilokhan in the form of a heating pad, Yoli who yelled at her to phone her friends, and Malcolm, who had floppy brown ears and a tail.

-----------------------------------

End Notes: Heh...I apologize for the whining-for-reviews in the last chapter. There was really no excuse for it. I shall endeavour to see that it does not happen again. At least, until the next time it does. ^_^

That said, I hope you enjoyed this slightly-filler-esque chapter. I guess I lied about the hurt/comfort crap ending after this chapter; I figure one more and the plot will return to something involving Sam and the rest. ^_^


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

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It was several hours later, just as he had begun to nod off over the books and notebooks pushed off to the side and the sketchbook in front of him that a soft crash drifted up from the kitchen. With a shake of his head, already knowing the cause, Malcolm pushed himself from his chair and left the room.

-----------------------------------------------

Moments later, he watched the pyjama-clad intruder for a time as she shuffled about the kitchen, searching carefully and quietly through drawers and cabinets. Then, as she lifted her arm to close a high cabinet door again, she gave a gasp of pain, and he frowned.

   "Hey," he called tentatively.

With a startled shriek, she whirled about, laughing in relief as her eyes lit on him.

   "Hi."

He crossed his arms as he started forward.

   "Mind if I ask what you're doing?"

   "Oh!" She blushed pinkly as it occurred to her for the first time that it probably didn't look very good to him to come downstairs to find her rifling through the kitchen in the middle of the night. "Um...do you have any Tylenol?'

   "I have Advil," he replied, pushing her gently out of the way, taking care not to put any pressure on her shoulder, and opening the bottom cabinet. He withdrew a small bottle and handed it to her.

   "That's kind of a strange place to keep medication," she noted, hiding a smile as he straightened up.

   "But I always remember where it is," he countered.

   "True," she admitted, and both lapsed into silence, uncertain of exactly what to say.

Somehow, both knew instinctively that something had changed, and small talk suddenly seemed unthinkable. But what had changed? When had it changed? It certainly hadn't felt like it earlier tonight, volleying insults back and forth. Somehow, though, even then, their bickering had had a warmer, more tolerant tone. So what were they now? And whatever they were, what did they say to each other at two in the morning, when both should have been asleep instead of roaming the house in pyjamas?

   "So...I'm sorry if I woke you up," she finally said. "I tried to be quiet."

   "Wake me? The eternal night owl?" he scoffed, reaching for the electric kettle, filling it with water, and plugging it in.

   "You haven't been asleep yet?"

   "No," he shrugged. "Is that unusual?"

   "You must have a late morning."

   "I have first period off."

   "Ah."

   "But you don't, so take your Advil and go back to bed, alright?" he urged with a wry smile, nudging her gently toward the door.

She made a face.

   "Yes, Dad."

   "Oh, shut up," he shot back, and she laughed at his outraged expression, then sighed.

   "Actually, I think I might stay up. I don't think I'll be able to sleep again."

   "At least try, will you?"

   "Only if you do," she countered, hopping up to sit on the counter. "Second period isn't that late."

He sighed, looking away abruptly as something in him took more notice than it should of the fact that the top button of her grey and blue plaid pyjama shirt, right on his eye level, was unbuttoned. Suddenly, it didn't seem too over-conservative anymore.

   "Alright."

   "But I'm waiting until these-" She shook the bottle of pills. "-start to work."

   "I'll wait up with you."

She frowned. 

   "You don't have to do that. Why should both of us be zombies tomorrow?"

He shrugged, pulling a mug from the cabinet.

   "You want tea?"

   "You came down here in the middle of the night to make tea?" she giggled.

   "Why not?"

   "Well...it's kinda weird. Of course, I guess it's no weirder than the time Sam and Tanker decided to make hamburgers in the middle of the night."

He stopped abruptly in the process of filling his mug with hot water, and stared at her.

   "What?"

   "Yup. At three 'o clock, they decided that they were really hungry, so they went upstairs and threw some frozen hamburgers in the microwave. Of course, since it was three in the morning, they both fell asleep while they were waiting for them."

   "So?"

   "That was after they hit the zero too many times and cooked the hamburgers for half an hour instead of three minutes. They didn't wake up until the hamburgers exploded. That's why I heard about it. Mrs. Collins was still ranting when I came over the next day."

   "Right. So, does that mean yes or no for tea?"

   "Sure," she shrugged. "Thanks."

He nodded and pulled another mug from the cupboard, and then poured the water over the tea bags.

Then, each clutching a steaming cup of tea, they made their way into the adjoining room and settled comfortably onto the couch. An uncomfortable silence hung between them for a few minutes, and then Malcolm spoke up abruptly.

   "If you have to go home again before your parents get back, let me know and I'll come with you."

   "There's really no point."

   "Of course there is. I want to make sure you're safe."

   "Malcolm, I've been home about twelve times since I've been here, and this is the first time anything's happened! Ray's even been home a few times, but when he saw me, he got up and left the room, and locked himself in the guest room until I was gone."

   "I know, but – what? How many times have you been home?"

She sighed, wondering if perhaps revealing this hadn't been the best of ideas.

   "Well, not quite twelve. About seven or so, I'd say."

   "Seven times! And you never expected this? Something like this was inevitable! God! Do you ever stop to think about what you're doing?"

   "Of course I do!" she snapped, furious. "I always do!"

   "It sure as hell doesn't show!"

   "Look," she began icily, rising to her feet. "We've both had a long evening. Let's just forget about this and go to sleep."

He bolted from his seat and caught her wrist, pulling her back.

   "Ow!" she yelped as still-steaming tea sloshed over the side of her mug and onto her wrist.

   "I don't know what thrill you get out of this," he said, voice shaking slightly, "but I wish you'd find some other amusement."

   "What are you talking about?" she demanded, wiping the tea off on her shirt and inspecting her hand for burns.

   "You know exactly what I'm talking about," he shot back. "You want to see how far you can go, and how much danger you can knowingly put yourself in, before you get a reaction."

   "No, I don't," she insisted quietly. 

   "Then what is this about?"

   "What do you think? I shouldn't have to be afraid to go home because of this guy! Why should I let him have the power to disrupt my life?"

   "Pride, then."

She pondered this for a moment.

   "Sort of, I guess. More like a sense of outraged justice."

He gritted his teeth, too annoyed to comment on her overblown, overly romantic description of the situation.

   "You should know better than that. Sure, you _shouldn't_ have to be afraid of this guy, but if you're smart, you'll at least be. It isn't a perfect world all the time. Life isn't always fair."

She rolled her eyes.

   "Believe me, I know."

They both fell silent for a moment, settling back onto the couch.

   "Are they working yet?" he asked abruptly, breaking the silence that had fallen over the small room.

   "Are what working?" she asked, confused.

   "The Advil."

   "Oh..." She touched the side of her face lightly, and experimentally shifted her shoulder. "Yeah, they're starting to."

   "Good."

   "So you can go back to bed?" she murmured with a soft laugh.

   "What?" he asked with a rather uncertain smile.

   "Oh...nothing," she assured him, sitting up straighter and shifting closer to her end of the couch, from there casting hesitant glances at him.

   "What now?" he asked. "Still nothing?"

   "Why did you come looking for me?"

   "Why do you think?"

   "Conscience?" she suggested.

   "You know better than that," he scoffed. "I don't have a conscience."

   "Then...why?"

   "No reason," he replied carefully.

   "Right," she sighed, rolling her eyes. "No reason. Let me guess: it was for the sake of winning Jennifer's favour. She would find out, and think you were all heroic, and her heart would melt, and she'd forget Sam immediately."

He turned away abruptly, scowling darkly into space. 

   "There's really no point correcting you on that, is there?"

   "What do you mean?" she asked with a frown.

   "I mean that you're going to keep believing that I'm pining for her, whether or not it's true, because it makes everything less complicated for you."

She looked up at him sharply, and he sighed, fervently wishing that he could take the statement back. Where had it come from, anyway? Just because he'd been worried about her certainly didn't mean that he regarded her as anything more than an annoying know-it-all. Or, at best, as a friend. Even as he ran over this speech in his mind, though, it rang false. But still...even though he knew that she was more than an annoying know-it-all who happened to be living with him for the month, and knew with near certainty that she regarded him as more than a moody loner weirdo who happened to be letting her stay here in a rare show of decency, a long, involved, and painfully awkward conversation was the last thing either of them needed right then...

   "What...exactly does it make less complicated?" she asked slowly, mouth suddenly gone slightly dry. Of course, she'd been able to see this coming from pretty far off – after all, the time that they'd managed to spend together without one or the other storming off angrily had certainly been...nice, and she knew perfectly well that he hadn't come to find her for the sake of impressing Jennifer – but had scarcely been able to believe that it could happen all at once. And not only that, Mr. Denial himself had brought it up first! The whole world _had_ gone mad, hadn't it? Not to mention that she knew perfectly well all that he had done to the world through Kilokhan, but somehow she didn't care... 

   "You know," he replied, catching her eye and then sighing in exasperation when she looked quickly away.

   "I know _what_?" she demanded, annoyed, looking up at him briefly. 

   "You know why I came looking for you, for one thing."

   "I...I guess so," she admitted, flushing brightly and carefully taking his hand and giving it a friendly squeeze that somehow failed to be only that. "Thank-you, even though I was fine on my own."

His response, too startled at the gesture to say something more like him, was a noise that wasn't quite a word as his fingers tightened over hers, every noise in the room becoming suddenly and oddly a lot louder, and she turned slightly to face him, tucking one leg underneath her and meeting his eyes shyly.

   "Um...Malcolm?"

   "What?" he asked, barely above a whisper as something in him recognized her expression, wonder and apprehension mingled.

   "What were we talking about?"

   "I forget."

She shifted closer.

   "Never mind," she murmured, leaning forward and brushing her lips gently against his.

He expelled a startled breath at the barely perceptible, but meltingly sweet pressure, her lips firm and yet soft against his, their breath mingling, hesitant, worried, but hopeful and wanting more. 

Recovering from shock after several seconds, he started to raise a hand to her hair, when it occurred to him in a slosh of lukewarm liquid over his wrist that said hand was still gripping a mug of tea.

Reluctantly, he disentangled his other hand from hers and pulled away.

   "Should I be apologizing?" she choked, blushing a fiery red and looking away miserably.

With a slightly nervous smile, he reached for her mug of tea and set both mugs on the floor next to the couch.

   "Oh," she began to say, but quickly opted against as he straightened up and reached for her hand, his fingers winding about hers, and then leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers again.

With a small noise at the back of her throat that didn't come anywhere near to being a word, she shifted closer, gripping his arm with her free hand, and deepening the kiss.

Wondering uneasily whether her decided skill with this was really a good thing despite the obvious benefits for him, considering where she must have gotten her practice, he nevertheless responded instantly, sliding his tongue lightly over her lip and feeling his own pulse speed up considerably at the strong shudder that ran through her. Then, as it occurred somewhere in the back of his mind that tasting blood while kissing someone wasn't a good thing, he pulled back abruptly, searching her face carefully for signs of pain.

She stared at him, quite astonished.

   "What's wrong?"

In answer, he ran one finger over the bruise on her cheek, down to her lip.

   "Oh," she sighed. "Don't worry; it's fine, unless it bothers you..."

He stared at her for a moment, one eyebrow quirked curiously, and then he kissed her again, still clinging to her hand tightly. 

   'Guess not,' she thought absently, wrapping her other arm around his neck.

Gasping softly as her mouth opened beneath his and her tongue slid out to urge his lips apart, he released her hand and wrapped his arm tightly around her waist, hauling her closer as his other hand moved, seemingly of its own accord, to the buttons of her pyjama shirt.

She shivered, dimly aware that she seemed to be feeling a bit of a draft, but utterly unwilling to ruin the moment by remarking on it. And anyway, she reflected with an inward smile, as a rush of heat flooded through her at the sensation of his tongue entwining with hers, and that of his leg wedged between hers as she readjusted her position on his lap, cold was rapidly becoming less and less of a problem. 

With a slightly shaking hand, he worked the last button out of its buttonhole, and her eyes widened as her top fell open.

   "What...?" she started to ask, but the question melted into a startled, insistent whimper as he pushed the fabric aside and brushed his fingertips gingerly over the side of her breast and a jolt seemed to shoot through her at the contact. She arched almost involuntarily into the caress, the heat churning in her abdomen turning gradually to an ache.

Made bolder by her response, he pushed the flannel shirt back off her shoulders, his hand cupping her breast, and kissed her neck softly, running his hand up and down her back absently with his free hand as he did.

She gave a sharp exclamation of pain and pulled back as her shoulder gave a throb of protest.

   "Sorry," she said sheepishly, making a self-deprecating face and rubbing her shoulder lightly to soothe the ache. 

   "Don't worry about it."

   "We should probably stop, anyway," she sighed reluctantly.

He smiled wanly.

   "Yeah; you still need to go to sleep."  
   "Right, right," she grumbled, pulling her shirt back on and feeling a rush of mingled horror and exhilaration as it finally occurred to her exactly what had been well on its way to happening. "You too, okay?"

   "Sure," he agreed reluctantly, tearing his eyes away from the skin being quickly covered up again and climbing to his feet.

She stood up slowly, buttoning her shirt.

   "Well...goodnight."

   "Goodnight," he repeated, looking smiling slightly as she took his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. Then, tugging his hand away, he started slowly toward the stairs.

Watching him go, she expelled a shaky breath.

   'Wow...what happens now?'

-------------------------------------------

Shutting his bedroom door behind him, Malcolm leaned back against it with a long sigh. So. Something had finally happened. What would happen next, was the big question. Was this going to be the start of something? Or would both of them just pretend the next day that nothing had happened?

   'If she tries that...' he thought viciously and utterly ironically.

He glanced at the wall between his room and the guest room, and then looked away quickly once he realized he had done it. Why did the simple act of kissing a girl make him feel like it would be impossible to look her in the eye the next time they met? Why was the thought that she was sleeping in the next room over both terrifying and perversely thrilling? Did this happen to everyone in this situation? Or was he just sick?

Probably the second, he thought with a smirk, pushing off from the wall and making his way through the piles of clothes and books and art supplies that littered the floor, to his desk.

Once there, he picked up a pencil, opened his sketchbook, and for a time, stared unseeingly down at it, tapping the surface of his desk absently.

Then, shaking himself out of this trance, he continued on a design begun earlier that evening.

Several minutes later, he added the final details and prepared to take the drawing to Kilokhan.

As he flipped on the computer screen, he wondered uneasily, not for the first time, if this were the right thing to do. Indeed, the wicked glee that usually hung about him when preparing to put a plot into motion was missing. Instead, he felt a faint grim satisfaction. If this wasn't the sort of thing he was used to using Kilokhan's abilities for, it was necessary. Even if that man wouldn't be able to hurt her again, as long as she did what she was told, Malcolm had never held with forgiving people their past offences simply because they wouldn't be repeated. 

Yes, it was fairly clear to him that something had to be done about Ray.

The boy's ponderings over moral questions came to an abrupt end when the left-hand monitor lit up.

   "Greetings, meat thing. Kilokhan is here."

   "I have a new virus that I need you to bring to life," Malcolm said, forgoing any useless pleasantries. Aside from the fact that he was dealing with a computer program and pleasantries had always seemed a little silly, he quite simply didn't have time for them tonight.

   "An interesting design," Kilokhan commented, presumably scrutinizing the other screen. "What will it do?"

Malcolm hesitated.

   "Well...its function is to overload a person's brain and shut down their body."

Something remarkably similar to surprise filled Kilokhan's voice.

   "Ah! This is very different from your usual petty schemes, isn't it?"

The boy fell silent for a long moment.

   "I have a reason."

   "Very well. Where shall we send this virus?"

   "This address," Malcolm replied, typing in the address of the Forester home.

There was a pause.

   "Has the Sam Collins meat-thing moved house?" Kilokhan finally asked.

   "No," Malcolm replied simply. "We have a different target in mind this time."

   "As much as I dislike your petty vendettas, this virus does indeed have merit. And so, meat-thing, I shall allow you your scheme, and afterwards, we shall use this virus in my conquest of the world."

   "Sure," Malcolm agreed with a shrug. "Now, can we get on with it?"

With an irritated grumble, Kilokhan shot forth a beam of light to animate the creature on the other screen.

   "And now," the boy murmured with the same grim satisfaction as before, "we wait."

------------------------------------------

Some half an hour later, in a house not far away, a man in a bathrobe, sitting hunched over at a kitchen table with a coffee cup in his hand and much on his mind was jolted from his thoughts by a crazily sparking toaster, and went to investigate. As the sparks died away, he reached for the plug, thinking to take it to the table to take a look at it. However, this was not to be, as the moment he touched the cord, a blue light seemed to jump forth from the toaster and hit him full on in the face. He let out a shout of pain cut off abruptly as he dropped limply to the floor and lay as though dead.

------------------------------------------

End Notes: Hey, I think I see a faint glimmer of plot on the horizons! Anyway, again I would like to apologize for this dalliance in the Land of Melodramatic Romance, but we should be leaving soon, and making our way back to what almost everyone probably watched this show for: fight scenes! So, yeah. I thank you for bearing with me, and I hope this hasn't been too painful. 

Also, I would like to apologize for my weak, weak explanation of the function of the new virus. I'm certainly no medical doctor, and while a little research might have helped, I didn't want to add rambling (and probably utterly incorrect, knowing me) medical explanations to an already sickening amount of filler. ^_^

Anyway, tune in next time to see stuff happen that has nothing to do with cute, awkward romance! Yaay! Other stuff! ^_^


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